14 DAY TRIAL // The RTS genre became what it is today sometime around the early 1990's, with Dune II in 1992, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994 and the 1995 Command & Conquer, as the fathers of the genre. The games have evolved a lot since the beginning of their franchise, and at least one of them plans to make a radical change to the concept. The Command & Conquer series has just brought in Might & Magic creator Jon Van Caneghem to take care of the next C&C, and he plans to focus a lot on the online aspect of the title.
"[EA] has the same vision I do on the future of games and the future of this franchise, so I think it's going be great," Caneghem said to Gamasutra. "Direct-to-consumer is where I think most games are going, and I've always been a fan of the [C&C] series." The big online venture for the title won't refer strictly to the multiplayer and player-to-player connectivity, but will focus more on the player-developer communication.
"For years we made games, put [them] in a box and hoped [they] sold well, and if [they] did we made sequels," he added. "It's exciting for designers to be connected with the customer on an instant, daily basis and have all the info on what they're doing. It's instant feedback and you can plan your entire pipeline around it." But the game also plans to bring in a strong social experience for the players and allow them to interact with each other like never before in an RTS game.
"It allows you to do everything you would have expected from a boxed game, but it adds a lot more to it... being connected and connected with players, and persistence, the social elements of playing against each other with other friends," Caneghem said about the direction the new C&C would head into. "What you're seeing with all the social gamers on Facebook... they are actually already playing strategy games whether they know it or not. Taking a franchise like Command & Conquer and expanding it to a wider audience is part of the strategy."