EA Officially Announces Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn Remaster - No Microtransactions

[Raevenlord]

EA today has announced that which we were already hoping and expecting: remasters of the Command & Conquer series of videogames. The publisher has officially announced thew initiative, which will start in the very beginning of the series: Tiberian Dawn. This will be the first of a series of efforts on the series, though, as EA will be looking to start remastering Red Alert as soon as Tiberian Dawn is released (always pending, of course, consumer reception). As an added bonus, DLC released for the original games will be bundled right alongside the remastered versions, so it really is the definitive package.

EA has partnered with Petroglyph for this undertaking, aided by Lemon Sky Studios, to help bring these original games to 4K glory, with improved assets and visuals that stay true to the original vision for the games. I for one am waiting intently. But i'd just like to take a passing shot at the industry at large here: don't you know the world has turned a sour point when "no microtransactions" becomes a boast and sales marketing strategy?

Command & Conquer community,

It was over 25 years ago when Brett Sperry and I (at Westwood Studios) worked to create a game that mixed together elements of Populous, Civilization, Herzog Zwei, and Military Madness games. Brett Sperry was visionary and I was lead programmer and designer. The result was Dune II. The first game of a new genre -- Real-Time Strategy. The subsequent game, Command & Conquer (C&C), is where the RTS genre really took off. It combined video recorded actors, rendered 3D video sequences, alternate story endings, an enigmatic villain (Kane), free multiplayer for your friend (only 1 CD was required to play and the game came with 2 CDs), context-sensitive mouse control, and two unique factions that didn't play by the same rules.

C&C didn't turn out as we originally envisioned. I had initially designed the game to be set in a fantasy world with three factions -- humans, wizards, magical beasts. Some months into development, Brett Sperry decided to redirect the game toward modern military for two main reasons. The gulf war was in the news so this was more relatable to gamers at the time, and also because we believed fantasy was too niche. I saw this new direction for C&C as being closer to turning my childhood experiences of playing with plastic soldiers in a sandbox into "reality" so to speak. Thus Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn was born.

The positive reaction to the game was intense. C&C was the right kind of game that arrived at the right time.

We should have seen the clues that C&C would be a success. The QA department would have difficulty testing for bugs since they could not resist losing focus to play for fun and try to win against each other instead of the more "boring" bug-testing they were actually assigned. The rest of the studio would play the game in the late afternoon and into the early evening. I would take careful notes and then make changes overnight to start the process over again the next day.

As soon as C&C was released, we immediately started working on an expansion pack that would pivot to alternate history with a post WW II feel. We kept adding more units, backstory twists (w/ Kane), more elaborate interstitial video sequences (still campy though), and new gameplay features. It became so massive an expansion that we just had to turn it into a stand-alone game in its own right -- C&C: Red Alert. Players seemed to love this game just as much as the original C&C!

Over the years, I've received C&C related gifts, fan mail, and anecdotes, and two fans even got matching GDI and Nod tattoos! The most common request is to bring C&C back to its roots like the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert. My answer was always the same: "Yes that would be great! Electronic Arts (EA) is the gatekeeper for C&C though. If they are on board, so am I!"

So here we are 20+ years later and EA has reached out to us regarding C&C. They had decided it was about time to revisit the original C&C games to give the fans what they had been asking for. Petroglyph has many former Westwood employees and is a perfect fit for bringing the original Command & Conquer games back to life. I'm excited to revisit the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert for our legacy fans, along with introducing the games to a new audience! Our battle-plan mission is to "remaster" rather than "remake" the original C&C games. That definition is a little fuzzy around the edges and that is where you come in.

I'm looking forward to re-engaging with the fans of the series as we bring the Command & Conquer franchise back to its roots of "easy to play, difficult to master". We're eager to provide an experience that takes advantage of enhanced connectivity, graphics features, and other technology improvements that weren't around back in 1995. As we begin to craft the plan that will kick off the development phase of the project I'm eager to hear what else fans are looking for. If you could turn back the clock, what would you have wanted in the original C&C games? How true to a remaster should we adhere do? What modern improvements can be added without deviating from the core game? Balance changes? We will be starting development soon, so now is the time to let your voice be heard.

Joe Bostic

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[dcf-joe]

Here is an official EA page on the reveal as well: https://www.ea.com/news/details-command-and-conquer-remastered.

I can not wait for this to come out. I was around four years old when the first C&C came out, but I can vaguely remember playing some of the C&C games with my father in the mid to late 90's. Just looking at the CD cover just gets to my feels.

 

[dj-electric]

Now RA2+YR and we good

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

So whats the catch? There is ALWAYS a catch with EA.

I'm still waiting for all the old C&C games to appear on GoG. I refuse to install origin for a single publisher, especially to play some old 16 bit strategy games.

 

[Vayra86]

So whats the catch? There is ALWAYS a catch with EA.

I'm still waiting for all the old C&C games to appear on GoG. I refuse to install origin for a single publisher, especially to play some old 16 bit strategy games.

Hehe exactly my thought when scrolling down, but what I'm reading so far did get me warm and fuzzy.

 

[Raevenlord]

Here is an official EA page on the reveal as well: https://www.ea.com/news/details-command-and-conquer-remastered.

I can not wait for this to come out. I was around four years old when the first C&C came out, but I can vaguely remember playing some of the C&C games with my father in the mid to late 90's. Just looking at the CD cover just gets to my feels.

Thanks for that EA page, updated the story

 

[Voluman]

So whats the catch? There is ALWAYS a catch with EA.

I'm still waiting for all the old C&C games to appear on GoG. I refuse to install origin for a single publisher, especially to play some old 16 bit strategy games.

The catch will be the price i guess.

 

[Frick]

...Tiberian Dawn? Is that a new name?

Also, Petroglyph is a good choice. My personal favourite of the series is probably Tiberian Sun. On the whole though I never quite liked the C&C games, not even Red Alert. They were good, but I much prefered Warcraft and Starcraft. I never liked the units, or rather the lack of statistics. How good is that tank? I've no idea, apart from it makes a green line smaller faster than the other tank. Awesome lightning weapons! But I've no idea how much damage they do. Ooohh supertank! But oh no there's no way to tell if it's even useful to me right now. It's the reason I never got into Battle Realms despite adoring basically everything about the game.

 

[Vayra86]

...Tiberian Dawn? Is that a new name?

Also, Petroglyph is a good choice. My personal favourite of the series is probably Tiberian Sun. On the whole though I never quite liked the C&C games, not even Red Alert. They were good, but I much prefered Warcraft and Starcraft. I never liked the units, or rather the lack of statistics. How good is that tank? I've no idea, apart from it makes a green line smaller faster than the other tank. Awesome lightning weapons! But I've no idea how much damage they do. Ooohh supertank! But oh no there's no way to tell if it's even useful to me right now. It's the reason I never got into Battle Realms despite adoring basically everything about the game.

Heh funny that is how you looked at those bars. I just knew exactly how many shots it would take for each unit at some point, to kill most other units. In the end it's the same abstraction of the numbers, isn't it?

And by the way, didn't Warcraft 3 have variable damage numbers as well? I'm quite sure it did.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I know a lot of people really enjoyed the series, but I never got it into it. I even went as far some years back to purchase a Command & Conquer Collection (here's an amazon link to the one I had - https://www.amazon.com/Command-Conquer-Collection-PC/dp/B0000CE1J2 )

Granted, this was a good decade or more after the series had already been out. I installed and played a couple of the games, but I just couldn't get into them. The last RTS game I played and enjoyed was Company of Heroes and after that game I kind of lost my taste for RTS games. So when I tried the C&C games, I just wasn't into them.

My suggestion, anyone that wants the older version would be to pickup one of the C&C collection boxes. I don't think EA will sell it on another platform. They want Origin to keep going strong.

 

[Nuckles56]

Sadly I don't believe EA saying that there will be no microtranscations, as EA is greedy as f@#$ and will milk any cow until it is just a decaying skeleton

 

[Frick]

Heh funny that is how you looked at those bars. I just knew exactly how many shots it would take for each unit at some point, to kill most other units. In the end it's the same abstraction of the numbers, isn't it?

So you played by trial and error. Which is fine I suppose but it really shouldn't be necessary. And it's kinda the same thing except that the presentation that includes numbers are so much better in every single way. I shouldn't have to play for hours and memorizing details and paying attention to shots fired to get through a campaign. And is there armour? Do units have strenghts and weaknesses, IE doing more damage to some units and less to others? I have no idea. I'm not asking for detailed in game guides to a rock-paper-scissor system or anything or Build X to Counter Y popups, just basic information about the units I'm using. Again I'm using Battle Realms as a bad example (made by ex Westwood people): every single unit had special abilites. Attacking uphill gives a penalty to attack, except for Spearmen. The cannon guys has an idle sort of clownish animation which makes the peasants work faster. The Mauler has a jumping attack animation that while the animation plays gives him a height advantage. Awesome stuff, but you have to read about it in the manual because there's no info about it in the game and absolutely zero way to know exactly how much the abilities matter, which makes the whole point moot. It was the same with C&C. Just rush to the most expensive unit, build a million of them and send them in. Hyperbole, but still.

Weirdly a C&C game without these qualities wouldn't be a C&C game and so I don't wish for them to implement it in any C&C game, new or old. It just really grinds my gears because I really want to like the games, and I do, but I find them so very frustrating to play.

And by the way, didn't Warcraft 3 have variable damage numbers as well? I'm quite sure it did.

All Warcrafts did.

 

[RCoon]

I hope Red Alert comes with the Aftermath expansion so I can play the secret Ant campaign.

 

[mouacyk]

Please lead the way EA... lol. We know you can fix problems you create.

‘Red Alert Online’ is coming to mobile devices, and people are not happy
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/red-alert-online-announced-for-mobile/

The Responses to Blizzard's Diablo Immortal Announcement Are Not Positive
https://screenrant.com/diablo-immortal-mobile-response-negative/

Let's hope Blizzard has enough care to follow suit.

 

[Kursah]

Man, the original Command and Conquer was my first RTS experience. I'm excited for this. I really hope they remaster Tiberian Sun as well at some point. Though admittedly, CNCNet.org has done a quite commendable job at making all the free C&C's including the ones here, to work on modern OSes AND have working MP.

 

[phill]

Might have to re buy them all if they come out 4k remastered versions on nice optical media, I'm sold!!

 

[Jism]

There's nothing more better then the smell of burned bodies caused by a tesla-coil.

 

[londiste]

They better do the game justice with the remaster.
There is OpenRA for the fans to fall back to

There's nothing more better then the smell of burned bodies caused by a tesla-coil.

Sure there is. Say hello to my Obelisk of Light!

 

[Manu_PT]

Here is an official EA page on the reveal as well: https://www.ea.com/news/details-command-and-conquer-remastered.

I can not wait for this to come out. I was around four years old when the first C&C came out, but I can vaguely remember playing some of the C&C games with my father in the mid to late 90's. Just looking at the CD cover just gets to my feels.

Same, this game brings me old memories from childhood. Still remember me and 2 friends staring in front of the 15 inch CRT trying to complete Tanya mission from Red Alert.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

I wonder if I will get a discount for each remaster? I have the whole C&C collection on Origin, it doesn't run so well...

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I wonder if I will get a discount for each remaster? I have the whole C&C collection on Origin, it doesn't run so well...

your 'discount' will be in the value of more microtransactions.


I dont believe this even for a second. Especially since its EA. if they dont add it on day one, then they'll add it later on just like Activision with CoD.

 

[Exceededgoku]

For those who want a (legal) fix right now, please give OpenRA a try.

They're pretty excited about this release too, so I can only imagine it'll bring more to the table than their offering!

http://www.openra.net/

There's a small online community, everyone is damn good though so be prepared!

 

[bug]

i'd just like to take a passing shot at the industry at large here: don't you know the world has turned a sour point when "no microtransactions" becomes a boast and sales marketing strategy?

The question is pointless. Of course they know, but as long as the target audience buys into that, they have no reason to care.

 

[lexluthermiester]

This has the potential for awesomeness!

Note to EA;

GOG, Steam. Emphesis on GOG. Not buying otherwise! Thank You.

 

[SniperHF]

If they add certain modern convenience features RTS players are accustomed to now, it will require some rebalancing. The games weren't made to have unit queues of a couple dozen units constantly popping out. It was expected that attacking or micromanaging your troops would take away from your production capability.

For those who want a (legal) fix right now, please give OpenRA a try.

For now. A lot of times cease and desists start flying when remasters start up.