14 DAY TRIAL // The Command & Conquer RTS franchise from EA Los Angeles has been a staple of a classic strategy series for quite some time. Even in the most recent iterations from various franchises like Tiberium Wars or Red Alert 3, the mechanics weren't drastically different than the ones featured in the first titles, which appeared many years ago.
But with the upcoming Command & Conquer 4, things will drastically change, as base-building won't be necessary anymore, with new units coming out of the Crawler mobile base. Another big change will be the fact that resource collection won't be required and players will get the opportunity to respawn during battles.
When asked by Videogamer if he considered that it was a bit late for a change in the classic recipe, the producer, JimVessella, revealed, “Absolutely, it's a big risk. Command & Conquer has been a very strong franchise for a long time now with that formula, and it's worked well with us. So we originally stuck with that plan, and kind of made C&C 4 a standard C&C game in the same way that 3 was. And that probably would have worked out fine, but it wasn't going to grow our audience, it wasn't going to bring in new players and allow a new generation to come in.”
He continued and revealed that paradigm shifts were happening with other developers also, largely because new people needed to be introduced to the genre and a classic game would seem confusing. “I think we are taking a little bit of a risk, but it's a really good risk. It's what the genre needs, and I think that other companies like Relic and Massive have seen that as well. I hope it pays off, I really do. I hope that new players try the game, have fun with it and then try out some of the other RTS games out there.”
While the previews of C&C 4 have sparked a lot of debate among fans, hopefully the team at EA LA will work hard and make the new system work even better than the old one. All we can do is wait until 2010 when C&C 4 will be released.