The Rise and Fall Of the Command&Conquer Series
The Command and Conquer(CNC) series is a real time strategy(RTS) series first developed by Westwood studios that spans almost two decades, from 1995 to 2013. In the series the player is tasked with building an army while managing a simple economy to crush his/her enemy. In this post I will attempt to showcase its rise in popularity and subsequent fall from grace.
Humble beginnings
The first game was launched in 1995 and was based on the previous smash hit game by the same developer, Dune II. It's set in a future world (at the time) in which an alien substance known as Tiberium. This substance was very valuable but deadly and also so unknown that a world alliance called Global Defence Initiative(GDI) wanted to take a reserved approach to it. But this sparked basically a terrorist movement, that almost venerated it and wanted to blend with it, called Brotherhood of Nod (NOD) let by a mysterious leader called Kane. Thus, the player has two campaigns to tackle, one from the perspective of GDI and one from NOD. You could also play skirmish battles vs bots or multiplayer vs any combination of players or players and bots. The game received one expansion in 1996 called Covert Operations
1996 also saw the start of another series, that was originally meant to be a prequel to the Tiberium series, with the launch of Red Alert that saw the Allies (NATO countries) pit against The Soviet Union at the end of WWII fighting for world domination. Both CNC and CNC:RA were successes and established the company and both series in the mainstream conscience. CNC:RA recieved three expansions: CNC:RA-Counterstrike in 1997, CNC:RA-The Aftermath also in 1997 and CNC:RA-Retaliation in 1998.
In 1997 a spin-off called of the original CNC called Sole Survivor was released. It was a multiplayer only deathmatch game in which the player controls a single unit and collects crates that grand bonuses to firepower, armor, speed and so on and fights others for, as the name suggests, be the sole survivor. Unlike the two RTS games released before it, it was not a success, although it, along with mods to Starcraft and Warcraft can be considered the predecessors of the MOBA genre.
Westood's rise to glory
In 1999, Westwood released CNC:Tiberian Sun which continued the storyline of the original CNC. It takes place roughly 30 years later and features much improved graphics, based on a new isometric game engine, and gameplay, while providing a more sci-fi take, as opposed to political, on the issue. It also featured a slow ambient soundrack with an apocalyptic vibe, which was fitting, considering the tiberium infested, war torn that the most fighting takes place.
The next year an expansion was released, called CNC:Firestorm which features a conclusion to the GDI perspective of the base game. Here GDI and NOD are forced to join forces against a rogue AI NOD created to aid against GDI, called CABAL
In the year 2000, the game CNC:Red Alert 2 was released. This is probably the most know game of the series. It features the Soviet Union invading the USA. The soviet sheer mechanical prowess and artillery supported by large number of conscripts and psychically controlled units, such as a giant squid are pit against the allied much more specialised units such prism and mirage tanks, fast aircraft and experimental units dabbling in time travel and teleportation. Although CNC:RA hinted at a link with the Tiberium series, Red Alert 2 is considered as a parallel universe as a consequence of time travel experimentation.
The game received a massive expansion in 2001, with CNC:RA2:Yuri's Revenge that introduces a whole new faction in Yuri, previously an ally and advisor to the Soviet Union, based on slave labour and psychically controlled units. They could also capture allied or soviet units to aid them in their goals. In addition to this, the other two factions were more fleshed out with more units and missions.
In the year 2002, the game CNC:Renegade was released. Unlike the other games in this universe, this was a first person shooter (FPS) in which you play as GDI commando Captain Nick "Havok" Parker. The game takes place in the closing weeks of the First Tiberium War covered by the original game. Its campaign was mediocre, but it featured a critically acclaimed multiplayer mode that pitted teams of players against each other. Both teams had a base to protect that had structures the player would`ve constructed in the RTS games, including a tiberium refinery that employed a harvester to generate income with which the players could buy weapons or vehicles such as buggies, tanks or aircraft to aid in the fighting. With enough tiberium the player could also choose to become a hero unit instead of a regular one (soldier, rocketeer, engineer etc) and/or buy a beacon for superweapons to target enemy bases. If that sounds good to you, this game has been revived and is free and open source and is called RenegadeX
The series under EA
In 2003 CNC:Generals was released and it wasn't developed by Westwood like the previous games, but by EA Los Angeles. Even though Westwood was purchased by EA back in 1998, they did not interfere until now. This game was built with a brand new 3d game engine called SAGE(Strategy Action Game Engine) and featured a totally different plotline set in the near future pitting three factions against each other. There were the highly advanced and specialised troops, but also expensive to train and develop, of the US army; the cheaper but less niche troops of China that also focused on numbers, brute force and hacking; and the cheap and stealthy terrorist organisation called the GLA(Global Liberation Army). Every faction had a dedicated campaign and explored every perspective of this global war. Aside, from these campaigns you could also play skirmish battles against the AI or in multiplayer against and in cooperation with any combination of 7 AI bots and human players. The same year, the game saw an expansion in the form of CNC:Generals-(Zero Hour) that expanded the roster of all the factions while also including three derivative, highly specialised factions for every one of the three major armies, such as an air superiority focused US general, or nuclear powered chinese general, or a highly toxic bio-weapons based GLA terrorist leader. It also introduced Challenges which pit the player against every general in the game one after the other while expected to complete certain objectives.
In 2007 saw the launch CNC3:Tiberium Wars. It was a direct continuation of CNC:Tiberian Sun and it took place roughly 17 years after its predecessor's events. It featured pretty similar gameplay to CNC:Generals but with much improved graphics and attention to detail. The much anticipated game also introduced a new faction known as The Scrin. The players encounters them late in the campaign and learns that they are the originators of Tiberium and that this new alien enemy used it to change the Earth so that it would become livable for them. The next year an expansion was released that expanded all factions' rosters, and like CNC:Generals, it introduced 6 new armies that were variations on their respective base allegiances (two for each). It also introduce a whole new strategic mode that had the player plan in a Turn Based manner how to conquer the world. He would attack regions and build defences and fortify positions for more supplies of tiberium and manpower to support other armies nearby. Whenever the player would interact with enemies here, the game would start a new game that played in the usual RTS manner, but the starting armies and bases would depend on decisions made on the strategic map.
The same year CNC3:Red Alert 3 was released. The premise of the game was that at the end of CNC:RA2, when the Soviet Union was losing the war, the Premier decided to steal the allied time-travel technology and use it to go back in time and kill Albert Einstein, who was the mastermind behind all the allied most powerful tech, thus hoping that back in the original time, the Allies would be underequipped and lose the war. Of course, this being a game, things aren't that easy and sees the rise of The Empire of the Rising Sun become a major competitor to world power. Thus, the single player part of the game fields three campaigns, one from the perspective of every faction. This game took a major detour from the formula and focused heavily on multiplayer, so much so that every single mission requires an ally, either a friend or a mostly useless AI partner. Also all factions could build on water and most units had two modes in which it would function and had special abilities. Its graphics were quite cartoony as well. In 2009 a stand-alone expansion was released. It was called CNC:RA3-Uprising so it did not require the base game to be playable. It introduced 30 new maps and four mini campaigns, three for each faction continuing the story in CNC:RA3 (Allied victory) and another one focusing on the origin story of the Empire's commando unit - Yuriko Omega. A part of this expansion was also sold separately, only including the units and maps, but not the campaigns and it was called CNC:RA3-Commander's Challenge. While this game wasn't a disaster, it did signal the beginning of the end for the series.
In 2010 CNC4:Tiberian Twilight was launched. The game continued the story of of the tiberian plotline. It was set 10 years after its direct predecessor and was set on an Earth overwhelmed by tiberium, which had reached its final form, soon to rend the planet uninhabitable. It departed heavily from the formula by removing the Scrin from the game and ditching base building and resource collection entirely. It only focused on fighting between variants of the original two factions by focusing on capturing and holding areas of the map to gain resources to be able to order units it. It was panned by fans as it did not resemble the series at all. No expansions were released.The fall from grace
One more game was released in 2012 in the form of CNC:Tiberium Alliances. This basically doomed the series to a shameful death as it was only a browser game. It acted similarly to mobile games in which you build bases by passively gaining resources and upgrades take hours to take effect. Players don't directly control units but send armies to other players "bases" and await a status report. It was so different to the original games that it did not resemble them at all, only attempting to cash in on the brand name without incorporating anything of what made them great.Conclusion and opinion
The Command and Conquer series blasted on to the scene in the '90s with an action packed take on strategy games that propelled it to the top of gamers' wishlists. It offered an interesting political and sci-fi take on war without involving too much micro-management with the help of simple, yet effective UI. It branched off in an alternate universe with the introduction of the Red Alert series in the CnC universe, and a more realistic take on the world with Generals. Then, tainted by corporate greed, it devolved into a forced multiplayer cash-grab, condemning a beloved franchise to sorry demise.
That being said, it influenced the gaming industry massively and shaped the RTS genre along with other heavy-hitters of the time, such as Starcraft and Warcraft that had a more micro-intensive take. My personal favourite is Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun as it was one of the first games I ever played. It was so cool to see Titans fighting tanks in an Ion storm while infantry fought to survive while being engulfed by tiberium. Even though most consider Red Alert 2 the best game in the series, I will never forget the impact Tiberian Sun had on my 10 year old brain. Maybe it was the cheesy Full Motion Video(FMV) cutscenes, who knows? :)
What was your favourite, if any?
Hope you enjoyed. Leave your opinions and feedback below, it's greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading and have a great day!
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Good news.
Glad you liked it!
open RA is the best remake or Red Alert Dune 2000 and TBS
Yeah, had a go at it and was cool. But, I gotta say, as much as I like the originals, I can't really help but get annoyed at the graphics these days. I dunno, they just didn't age that well for me. :)
I have to go with the original games as they were the ones I put the most time in on. I played a lot on the Playstation console, years later I got those games on PC and restarted sinking more time into the first games. I played mostly as the GDI.
Great article and thanks for the memories.
No problems mate, glad you liked it!
I played quite a bit of the originals too, but they came later. I was just a wee-5 year old when the first CnC launched, so I didn't know anything about it. And playing them after CnC:TS and CnC:RA2, well, the interface was a bit of a turn-off. And the similarities between the factions didn't help either. But I can see how great their were for the time. I just came in the series too late to properly enjoy them I think.
That is understandable. I grew to be the other way around, as the series evolved, I lost interest (probably more tired of the genre in general than just C&C itself).
Did you know that EA made many of the games free, at least for a period of time (which a lot of sites interpreted as "forever")?
Probably a side effect of maturing. Most lose interest in games, or at least the dedication to them as they grow older.
I know that EA started as a good corporation that helped out developers to launch their games, kind of like GoG is now. But quickly changed their tune with the new millenium so I have no sympathy for them now. Sure, I appreciate what they have done in the past, but they flushed all that good will when they started pushing for 1000000 DLC and microtransactions in every game.
I completely agree with you about EA. I remember the good old days of EA - Lords of Conquest, Starflight 1 (and 2 I think was published by them too). Those were the days. That EA is dead and gone though, for proof anyone can look at their more recent releases such as Sims 4 and Simcity. Trash.
Yep, they have much cheaper and better competitors these days. I mean there's Cities:Skylines which is a much better product than SimCity. Not yet anything for the Sims though, which is odd. It's a great idea but nobody is capitalising on it. I don't get it. I know it's supposed to be a girl's game, but I kinda like The Sims, especially the creative side moreso than the life management side.
EA is a far cry from what it used to be, let's hope GoG and CDPR don't go the same route :)
As said in Spider-Man - "with great power comes great responsibility". Sadly, EA failed that test.
Most do. Here's hoping some don't!
Thanks for this. It really brings back memories!! I loved these back in the day. This series were some of the first games I got truely into. I don't think I could pick out a favourite as each had their own strengths and weaknesses but I did love the series. I may have to see if I can pick up retro copies on Steam etc!
No problem! They are EA games, and I'm not sure they're all available on Steam. There is however Command and Conquer: The Ultimate Collection on Origin for 29.99 Euros (or your regional equivalent) if you like. It includes all the CnC games in one package. And for once, EA priced it well :)
I'll definitely check this out. Steam seems to only have Red Alert 3 at £9.99, so the one you mention offers much better value. Thanks again.
I have CnC3 on Steam. Is it not sold there anymore? And no problem!
what will it run on?
It's for PC. If you mean what resources you need? They're mentioned in the link
I think I still have dreams about generals strategies on the hard setting hahahahah just Jonesing for a game from the past. Thanks for the reply !
No problem mate!
You can still play the game online. Pretty sure there are private servers with still active communities.
Good read. For me, Command and Conquer Generals and Zero Hour was it for me.
That is where my Command and Conquer love started and ended. Command and Conquer Generals was the first PC game I had. I remember waking up early for school just to play it for an hour before I got on the bus. My PC was so slow the game was choppy at about 10 fps and in big battles it would go right down to 1-2 fps. I didn't care. I still played the shit out of those games!
I actually played Zero Hour online again recently through C&C online. Online play is smoother these days than it ever was when EA was running the servers.
Huh, seems that most people seem to love the CnC game they started with, though I don't think we'll ever hear CnC4 being a favourite :)
I know the feeling of not being able to play or play with choppy framerate. I remember going to internet cafes to play my favourite games.
Glad you enjoyed the post, mate! Maybe try out the older ones too, see what us older folk like so much about them. Though you'll need to forget the uglier graphics and 2D landscape and think of them as how they fit in their specific time, the '90s and early '00s.
Oh my, C&C, what a blast from the past and an excellent post @sebi99p! Now, let me just wipe that nostalgia from my brow. :-)
Haha, yeah. Pretty old school gaming. I guess reminiscing about CnC does make me an old geezer, huh?
Glad you liked the post, my friend!
Old school it is @sebi99p and it's a throwback. Loved the post mate.
Quite old indeed, about 20 years for me at least. Some people are even bigger veterans who started from the beginning.
Thanks again!
I started in 96, so I think I'm in your age bracket too. :-D
For me it was around '98-'99, so yeah, pretty much there :)
Haha! Cool! :-D
Wow, now this is one hell of an comprehensive post!
And I do like the C&C games, they are probably my favorite RTS games.
Great post! Would you mind if I included it in today's "best of gaming"?
Hello there. Well I gave it the best I could as I'm a real fan of the CnC series, they're the go-to RTS games for me (except for cnc4 and ra3) :)
I wouldn't mind free promotion at all, my friend :p
Thanks and hope you enjoy :)
I was doing my own extended research on it and came across this reddit thread. Quite interesting reading more the players and getting perspective. Tiberian Sun does seem to be the fan favorite for many.
EA really has earned its back-to-back "Worst Company in America" reputation snuffing out the flame of some really historied franchises it seems like. The push to paywall many features and aspects of their games with microtransactions didn't seem to help either.
Well EA has earned that spot as it destroys all franchises/dev-teams it acquires. They stared with Bullfrog and Westwood, and the latest victims are Maxis and Bioware. Though I think most of Bioware's downfall these days is mostly their own doing moreso than EA pushing multiplayer and microtransactions.
Interesting to see that Tiberian Sun is getting some love :) From my interactions, it seems like RA2 is getting most of it. But that's fine, to each their own :) Though, I can't say that my biases don't make me happy to hear that TS is also right up there with RA2
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Red Alert 2 was definitely my favourite CNC game. I mostly played Soviets in the RA games and GDI in the Tiberian games. Generals I liked the USA's airforce a lot. I am also a bit sad about what happened to CnC, EA really destroyed the franchise by trying to make it a lame cash grab.
Also, the franchise has one of the most memorable themes in gaming history!
Indeed, that RA2 theme song was pure genius :)
RA2 is better than TS in many respects, but, as stated in the post, TS will always be close to my heart.
I liked to play GDI mostly, and either US / UK for the allies, or Russia for the soviets. As for Generals, I don't know why, but the game never really gripped me, even though I liked it alot.
Good post mate. Upvoted and followed you.
Thank you! Glad you liked the post!