14 DAY TRIAL // It's not quite everyday that a developer working on an AAA videogame says they hope a rival project will do very well when it is launched. But it seems that the team currently putting the finishing touches on Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight is genuinely hoping that StarCraft II, its big rival set to also be outed this year, will do well at retail and attract as many new fans as possible to the real time strategy genre.
Samuel Bass, who is the leading economic designer working on Command & conquer 4 at the EALA studios, has told Gamasutra that he has high hopes for StarCraft II. In his words, “Hopefully it will sell a bazillion copies, and a bunch of people will become much more educated in modern RTS play, and get back online and start playing the games. I think, in the end, it’s a good thing.”
He added that "This is a genre I love and I’d hate to see it go the way of the flight sim, where it's one development team in Russia doing something that's really incredible but that takes eight years to do.”
The positive feelings towards StarCraft II might have something to do with the fact that Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight is set to arrive on March 16, while the Blizzard RTS currently does not have a confirmed release day, although a beta stage is running at the moment.
Electronic Arts and its developers are trying something new with the last game in the Command & Conquer universe set to feature defining character Kane. The overall experience will be determined by the class players choose, focusing on offensive operations, defensive efforts or support roles. The idea is to simplify the real-time strategy mechanics while also offering more depth so that players get acquainted with their abilities as they play their chosen class and get better at what they do as they progress.