14 DAY TRIAL // It's now official that video game publisher Electronic Arts, with a new development studio called Victory Games, is going to create and release a new game in the Command & Conquer franchise, after pronouncing it utterly dead after the release of the fourth game.
I loved the Command & Conquer games and I am instinctively happy to hear that it will be brought back, but I am very sure, on a rational level, that the only way to create a successful real-time strategy franchise around the name is to ditch pretty much everything that the series has relied on for sales until now.
For one, the mining and basebuilding needs to be significantly reduced or eliminated altogether, with Victory in need to a unit dispensing mechanics that relies more on actual tactical situation or on player performance or on another trackable statistic linked to the level.
The game also needs to choose on whether it will adopt a smaller scale, like Dawn of War II did, or if it wants to go big, in the same space as Supreme Commander 2.
The middle of the road approach of the series is no longer feasible as it involves too much unit building and forces the gamer to spend too much time micro-managing units and missing the big picture.
The one thing that Victory can keep for their Command & Conquer remake is the campiness, the lighthearted mix between high drama and low brow humor that the series has always embraced.
Of course, a lot will depend on the execution and on finding voice actors and characters that can be as compelling as Kane.
Command & Conquer was out in the same space as the original Warcraft and, through its evolution in Starcraft, the Blizzard made real-time strategy philosophy has managed to endure and even to prosper, managing with Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty one of the biggest PC only launched of 2010.
This success means that the traditional strategy space is pretty much occupied so Victory Games and Electronic Arts need to deliver creativity in order to find a place in the gaming world for the new Command & Conquer.