EA have been keeping a fairly tight lid on the upcoming free-to-play Command & Conquer game currently being developed by Victory Games in Battlefield 3’s Frostbite 2 engine. That’s not wholly changed but VG247’s managed to interview Tim Orton, the game’s senior development director, who answers some of their questions about how that model will work and what will be in the game at release.
Naturally, I’ve stolen the video, embedding it below with my own commentary because… journalism.
While other C&C games have been released since Generals that was really the last good title in the series. I like thekitschstyle of Red Alert3 and Command andConquer 3 & 4 but they just didn’t compete with the mechanicsCompany of Heroes which shifted the genre in a new and more involved direction, leaving them feel stale in comparison.
It’s great that EA are, then, returning to the Generals franchise, it was a new space for the series where they could experiment with the RTS formula without pissing off the C&C fans who would see changes to Red Alert or Command & Conquer as an insult and could be used to the same effect now. I’m just worried that EA may not have a development studio that are able to create something refreshing in comparison tothe games coming out of Relic. The interview above makes it sound as though they’re very willingly playing it safe. All the talk about “taking 30% of what came before […] and leave that intact, another 30% will be very much along the same vein of what was in the previous game” makes me think this is going to be nothing new.
Still, this is all speculation, we still haven’t managed to get any hands-on time with the game and we may not till the beta that’s planned forlater this year.