Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

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This article or section contains information about a computer and video games>computer or video game . It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature, and the content may change dramatically as the game's release approaches and more information becomes available.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (working title) is the long awaited sequel to . The game was announced shortly after the release of . Taking place during the Third Tiberium War, the Brotherhood of Nod, now a superpower with a majority support of the world's population, launches a major offensive against the Global Defense Initiative, crippling their forces. With Nod looking likely to win this time, GDI commanders rally their troops, trying to restore lost hope. This Game has been confirmed by Steve Podcast 6/20/06 For the 360, Louis Castle has said they working on it with a release date in 2007. Louis had this to say: "and I know for a fact that they are doing this because these are the same guys, the same team, who's doing Command & Conquer 3 and they're definitely going to release it for the 360, you heard it here. And so what they are doing is they are really using Battle for Middle-earth II to sort of use it as a spring board to test, to see, how it is going to work for Command & Conquer 3, so they are trying to almost use this [BFMEII] as a beta; a very good beta."

Known facts

Like most games in development, the known facts for Tiberium Wars are few and far between. Although information on Tiberium Wars is still shaky, EA has released enough information for C&C fans to get a general idea of the game and its development.

The plot

The story begins in 2047, and the world is in an even worse condition than in Tiberian Sun. The spread of Tiberium continues to destroy the Earth, and the world has been divided into different zones. 20% of the Earth's surface is Tiberium-infested and inhospitable "Red Zones", 50% of the Earth is "Yellow Zones", areas where Nod is present and where Tiberium hasn't fully taken hold but is encroaching on the population, and the rest of the Earth is "Blue Zones", where it is safe to live and where GDI is present. The GDI is still trying to prevent the spread of Tiberium and convert the Yellow Zones to Blue Zones.

In March, Nod fires a nuclear missile at GDI's orbiting headquarters, the Philadelphia, destroying the fulcrum of GDI's military power. Since the end of the Second Tiberium War, Nod has built up its military into superpower status, and is now supported by the majority of the world's population through aid and propaganda. In no shape to handle the Nod offensives led by Black Hand shock troops around the globe, GDI commanders take charge, rallying their demoralized troops, hoping to win a victory over Nod (as in previous C&C games, no victor is specified).

Known units and structures

GDI

• GDI ORCA Gunship (Preview screenshot/article, PC Gamer issue 149)
• GDI ORCA/ORCA Scout (Preview article, PC Gamer issue 149)
• GDI Firehawk Fast Attack Jet (Preview article, PC Gamer issue 149)

• GDI Zone trooper, a heavilly armed soldier in a power armour suit who is immune to tiberium and who also has short range jumpjets (Preview screenshot, PC Gamer issue 149) could be a replacement for the Wolverine from Tiberian Sun. It is possible that the power armour suit is an evolution of the Mobius Suit seen in .
• GDI light infantry
• GDI grenadier
• GDI rocket soldier
• GDI commando
• GDI engineer

• GDI Mammoth Tank, main heavy tank equipped with dual 150mm guns that can be upgraded to rail guns, will also have dual rocket pods to take on infantry and aircraft; an onboard engineer will slowly bring it's health back to 50% when damaged
• GDI Predator Light Tank, can be upgraded to have missile launchers on a side mount (Preview screenshot, PC Gamer issue 149 & 1st of June's 06 Podcast)
• GDI Medium Tank
• GDI Pitbull (Preview screenshot, PC Gamer issue 149)
• GDI Mystery defense turret (Preview screenshot, PC Gamer issue 149)
• GDI Juggernaught artillery unit (Official C&C 3 forum)
• GDI Aircraft Landing Ship

NOD

• Nod Rocket Soldier

• Nod Stealth Tank (Preview article, PC Gamer issues 149)
• Nod Rig, similar to Nod Mobile Repair Vehicle

BOTH

• Tiberium Havester for both races (third faction unknown) will go back to Tiberian Dawn's design with claws "like a scarab beetle" (1st of june's 06 Podcast)
• Side bar and construction yard method of building bases and units (third faction unknown) (1st of june's 06 Podcast)

UNKNOWN

• Unknown Faction Mystery Green Soldier (Preview screenshot, PC Gamer issue 149)
• It is also known that Mechs, first introduced in Tiberian Sun, will make a return in Command & Conquer 3.
• Other familiar units will also be returning, although EA is staying tight lipped about which units those may be.
• It is specualated some units can control the weather.

Third side speculations

Once the player has completed both the GDI and Nod campaigns, they will be able to play a third mystery faction. The current speculations are:

• The Forgotten: Appearing for the first time in C&C History in , the Forgotten have been an integral part of the entire Tiberian storyline. The Forgotten were led by Tratos, until he was killed. Other major characters include Umagon (Dies from divination, as previously mentioned), Ghost Stalker and the Mutant Hijacker. In Tiberian Sun's expansion, Firestorm, the leader of The Forgotten was murdered by CABAL. The fate of the other two major Forgotten Characters remains unknown.

• The Scrin: Appearing for the first time in in the form of a huge alien ship and later (Although earlier by game chronology) in as a crashed flying saucer, not much is known about these beings, except that they are somehow connected to CABAL, Kane, Tiberium and its origin and distribution. Scrin technology is used in the Nod Banshee. Further evidence that this side is the third playable faction comes from the short teaser at the end of the E3 demo, in which the camera pans out to show a ravaged Earth from space, and the narrator says "And then, they came".
• CABAL (Computer Assisted Biologically Augmented Lifeform): Appearing in and its expansion-Firestorm, CABAL is Nod's AI in charge of Cybernetic Development and Tiberium Evolution. After going rogue in Tiberian Sun's expansion, Firestorm, it has become known that CABAL is somehow connected to Nod's leader, Kane. The origin of these connections is unknown. The fate of CABAL after Firestorm is unknown. A damaged state of CABAL can be heard in C&C Renegade's last mission, inside the Temple of Nod.
• Or, even possibly an entirely new faction. According to PC gamer, and according to pictures, it appears that there could be new units unknown to any of the speculations.
• Rumors that the third side could very well be Yuri, finally linking the Tiberian and Red Alert Universes have been mentioned in the PC game magazine.
• There is also the possibity that the third faction is Kane brought back from the brink by CABAL at the end of firestorm. This hints that he may not actually be working with the brotherhood in the third game as CABAL betrayed NOD at the end of firestorm but still saves (and probably follows) kane.

Other known facts

Other known facts about the game include:

• The return of full motion videos, after being notably absent in ' and '. [link]

• The return of resource harvesting and Mobile Construction Vehicles.

• The return of Kane, although it appears from early screen captures that Joseph D. Kucan will not reprise his role as the Nod leader, however casting for the movies is not yet finished and this may change.

• It seems unlikely that Frank Klepacki, game music composer who did all Command & Conquer games except Generals, will do the music for Command & Conquer 3. Klepacki is currently a full-time employee at Petroglyph, and both himself and the EA Community Manager have stated that he is not on the game's development team nor has he been asked to join [link]. EA's community manager has also said that the team is aware of fan's concern, and that EA's audio team has been studying Klepacki's music for the past ten years, and fans will not be disappointed.

• Command & Conquer 3 will use the pre-Generals right sidebar interface, as revealed in an interview on IGN [at this link:] "It's also worth mentioning the return of the side-bar interface: Our in-game UI for C&C3 is a side-bar that will feel familiar to C&C players but it has some added features that make it more useful - and make it feel interesting and new. We are combining the centralized production queues in the classic C&C side-bar with contextual space for selected units and structures. The new UI lets you quickly build units and structures, easily control grouped units, and access your build queues anywhere on the map - even in the middle of a battle. But you can still get lots of information about your selected units and activate their special abilities - which is pretty much expected in the latest generation RTS games. We think our interface for C&C3 is the best of both worlds."

• The development team, with help from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has devised information to see how Tiberium would work in real-world science.

• AI will be improved and campaigns will be more immersive.

• A brand new version of SAGE (Strategy Action Game Engine) will be used.

• Multiplayer will feature VoIP support.

• EA is planning several fan summits for previews, feedback and discussions.

Background

A sequel to Tiberian Sun has been expected and hyped since after Tiberian Sun’s release way back in 1999. A hypothetical sequel was called "Tiberian Twilight" throughout the Command & Conquer community. Work on a sequel is believed to have been started at Westwood Studios in 2001, but Electronic Arts decided to shift the focus of a sequel from a science fiction theme to a modern theme based on current world conflicts. The work on a sequel was used to make and other current Sage engine based games. Just before Generals was released, EA announced that Westwood Studios in Las Vegas would be closing and would be consolidated into EA Los Angeles. This split the Westwood team, with some members not willing to relocate and thus quitting and the rest moving to Los Angeles to work at the new consolidated studio, thus effectively stopping the development of Command & Conquer 3 for the time being.

In 2004, old concept art from Westwood was revealed, under the name "Command & Conquer 3". This artwork showed a mech unit, a fully 3-dimensional environment similar to that used in the game Generals, and the original interface system from both Command & Conquer and Tiberian Sun. This revealed artwork fueled speculation that EA was working on a Command & Conquer game, which in turn set off rumors as to when the game would ship and what the plot would be; however, in December of 2004, after the EALA team settled down, then Executive Producer and Command & Conquer lead Mark Skaggs announced in a mass e-mail that the next Command & Conquer game would be and not a long-awaited sequel to Tiberian Sun. However, shortly there after Skaggs left EA for reasons unknown^{[#endnote_Skaggs]} and ideas for Red Alert 3 were mothballed^{[#endnote_RA3]}. Westwood co-founder and EALA Vice President Louis Castle later became the new lead on Command & Conquer.

On April 18, 2006, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was prematurely announced. On April 20, an official press release was made.

Concern over development

Since acquiring and shutting down Westwood Studios, EA Games has been responsible for the development of all games in the Command & Conquer universe, but the results of these games have at times been somewhat lacking.

Fans of the Tiberian universe were upset with the release of Red Alert 2, primarily because the C&C community generally views Red Alert as prequel to Command & Conquer. The release of Red Alert 2 left many questions about the interconnection of the Tiberian and Red Alert series unanswered, with debated theories over how this should best be resolved. Ex-Westwood Studios personnel claim to have been working on a timeline that would solve the mystery and clear the confusion, but such a timeline has never emerged. Another sore point of Red Alert 2 was its somewhat comical view of the war: video briefings seemed to lend humourous overtones, resulting in the ongoing war seemingly not being taken seriously by those involved in it.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Three years after the release of Red Alert 2 came Command & Conquer Generals. Unlike previous C&C games, Generals and the Zero Hour expansion were developed by EA Los Angeles, after EA Games absorbed Westwood Studios. Longtime fans of the Command & Conquer universe were less than thrilled with changes EA implemented with Generals and Zero Hour. Generals departed from conventional Command and Conquer themes in several ways: The GDI, the Brotherhood of Nod, and the Tiberium resource were not present in this game. This game is not part of the 'Red Alert' theme either, it was an entirely separate game world. The game mechanics were more like other RTS games, such as Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft and the more recent Warcraft III. The control bar was moved to the bottom of the screen, the unique units for each faction (USA:Colonel Burton, China:Black Lotus, GLA:Jarmen Kell) resembled Warcraft III's Heroes, several units had special action buttons (cfr. the Warcraft series magic spells). Many units' attack and defense abilities could be upgraded in specific buildings much like in the Blizzard RTS games. There were no video briefings for upcoming missions, and the introduction of "middle men" met with some resistance. Unlike in the previous C&C games, a player could build as many superweapons as they had funds for; this last issue had been a major sore point for online players of Generals who frequently capped Superweapons (the game includes this option when setting up a server) or banned them altogether. In Zero Hour this ban was extended to include certain Generals personalities who were felt to be too powerful for use in online play. It should be noted that more experienced players usually frowned upon such artificial rules, noting that they often made balance even worse rather than improving it.

Many players also found the manner in which Generals latched onto topical issues in an overtly militaristic and pro-American fashion to be tasteless and insensitive. However, some argued that the stereotypes portrayed in the game extend to all three factions in a "tongue-in-cheek" manner in order to demonstrate political irony in today's world conflicts. The US units say some phrases which lend credence to this argument, such as "Preserving freedom!" and "We fight for peace!", not to mention "I'll fire at anything!".

As a result of these changes, some fans of the series argue that Generals was not a true Command & Conquer game. Some even going as far as to call it "Age of Generals" as a reference to the Age of Empires series by Microsoft Game Studios.

EA has not yet created and released a Command & Conquer game set in the Tiberian universe, although fans of the series are now wary of what the new game may look like. Most Westwood employees no longer work for EA Games, and it remains to be seen if Electronic Arts can secure actor Joseph D. Kucan to play Kane. Although Electronic Arts has taken some liberties with the development of previous Command & Conquer games fans of the series remain cautiously optimistic that Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars will emerge successful.

Notes

• ↑  The exact reason Mark Skaggs left EA remains unknown; according to EA he had taken "an extended leave of absence".
• ↑ EA has not explicitly stated the Red Alert 3 has been cancelled; it is possible that an RA3 may be produced at some point in the future, but is still uncertain.

External links

• [Official Website]
• [Offical Triberium Wars Forums]
• [Information from PlanetCNC]
• * [Renderings/concept art]
• [Scans from the PC Gamer magazine from "Coolrock"]
• [IGN Interview with Mike Verdu]

Fan Sites

• [Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Forums]
• [Discussion - Game Replays]
• [Old Westwood Concept art]
• [Information from CNCDen]
• [Information from CNCNZ.com]