14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts' long-running Command & Conquer real-time strategy franchise is set to be rebooted in the near future, as a new studio will take care of the series, at least according to the brief appearance of a new website dedicated to the event.
EA's Command & Conquer was one of the most successful RTS franchises of all time, spawning a wide array of series, including the main Tiberian one, Red Alert or Generals, but, in recent times, it hasn't really managed to draw in new gamers.
As such, EA is rumored to be preparing a full pledged reboot, fact seemingly confirmed by the brief appearance of a new website, CnCStage, which points to a brand new development studio taking the RTS series in a new direction.
According to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, the new studio is called Victory Games and will be led by Jon Van Caneghem, who previously oversaw the franchise at the EA Los Angeles studio.
"I can tell you it's a Command & Conquer game for the PC, but we're not yet at a stage where I can go into any details- we'll be prepared to make a more formal announcement later in the year," Van Canegham said in an article on the website. "We're not just working on a game, though. Our general focus is on the future of Command & Conquer. That means updating a lot of the core technology to create a stable base for future development, and leveraging that work on this first game."
Currently, the site is down, so no new information can be revealed.
After the lackluster debut of Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, which overhauled the core mechanics of the RTS game, a lot of rumors appeared concerning the franchise.
Among them, we heard that EA had shifted development duties from EA LA to Visceral Games, the studio behind Dead Space and Dante's Inferno.
That turned out to be false, as one of the Visceral executives dismissed the fact that a new Command & Conquer game was in development at the company.
Expect the official launch of the website and probably some new details about the RTS franchise to appear in the following weeks.