| Command & Conquer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genres | Real-time strategy (1995–2020) First-person shooter (2002) |
| Developers | Westwood Studios (1995–2003) EA Los Angeles (2003–2010) Victory Games (2011–2013) EA Phenomic (2011–2013) EA Redwood Studios (2018–present)[1] |
| Publishers | Virgin Interactive Entertainment Electronic Arts Sega Nintendo |
| Platforms | Apple Mac,Nintendo 64,PlayStation,PC (MS-DOS,Windows),Sega Saturn,[2]Xbox 360,Android,iOS |
| First release | Command & Conquer September 1995 |
| Latest release | Command & Conquer Remastered Collection June 5, 2020 |
Command & Conquer (C&C) is areal-time strategy (RTS)video gamefranchise created and originally developed byWestwood Studios and currently owned byElectronic Arts. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself based on Westwood Studios' influential strategy gameDune II and introducing trademarks followed in the rest of the series. This includesfull-motion videocutscenes with anensemble cast to progress the story, as opposed to digitally in-gamerendered cutscenes. Westwood Studios was purchased by Electronic Arts in 1998 and closed down in 2003. The studio and some of its members were absorbed intoEA Los Angeles, which continued development on the series.
AfterWestwood Studios developed the critically acclaimedDune II,Computer Gaming World reported in 1993 that the company would not use theDune license for Westwood's next strategy game "mostly because the programmers are tired of sand". The magazine stated that it would have "new terrain and enemies", and that "the design team is serious about doing a multi-player version".[3]
Command & Conquer was released worldwide by Westwood in 1995. The plot is set sometime in the near future where the Earth becomes contaminated by a mysterious substance known as Tiberium. A global war ensues between theUN-formed Global Defense Initiative to contain it and the cult quasi-state revolutionary Brotherhood of Nod, led by the enigmatic Kane, which seeks to harness it. Highly successful, it was followed byCommand & Conquer: Red Alert in 1996 which is set in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union wages war with the Allies. Developed as theprequel to the original, theRed Alert series eventually became a separate, lighthearted and comic series, while the original game and its sequels became known as the "Tiberium" series, retaining itsscience fiction and serious tone. The first game is sometimes referred to asTiberian Dawn as a result.
The original game was followed byCommand & Conquer: Tiberian Sun in 1999 and its expansion packFirestorm. In 2002,Westwood Studios releasedCommand & Conquer: Renegade, afirst-person shooter.Renegade was praised for its online features. A spin-off game in 2003,Command & Conquer: Generals, set in a more realistic near-future and featuring theUnited States,China and the Global Liberation Army was followed by an expansion pack,Zero Hour.Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was released in 2007 and followed by the expansion packKane's Wrath.Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, released in 2010 as the conclusion to theTiberium saga, received mixed reviews because of its deviation from traditional gameplay and story. TheRed Alert series was continued by the 2000 titleCommand & Conquer: Red Alert 2, its expansion,Yuri's Revenge andCommand & Conquer: Red Alert 3 in 2008, which introduced a third faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun, which resembles Japan with futuristic robotic technology.
The series is primarily developed forpersonal computers runningMicrosoft Windows, although some titles have beenported to variousvideo game consoles andApple Mac. Other games for platforms such as iOS and web-based have also been developed. As of July 2010, theCommand & Conquer franchise consists of eleven games and eight expansion packs. The first three games of the series have been released asfreeware to promote the successors.[4] A free-to-play game, entitledCommand & Conquer, was in development with the studioVictory Games. It was set to be the next game in the series and was expected to be released in 2013. However, after a short alpha period the game was cancelled, and Victory Games disbanded by EA.[5][6] TheCommand & Conquer series has been a commercial success with over 30 millionCommand & Conquer games sold as of 2009.
TheCommand & Conquer titles arereal-time strategy games, with the exception of thefirst-person shooterCommand & Conquer: Renegade. A staple of the series is the parallel campaigns of various different factions to one central storyline. Games in the series also offeredmultiplayer game options, viaLAN andmodem connection. All games in the series have also offered online play, as well as "skirmish" matches in which players can face AI enemies.
AllCommand & Conquer real-time strategy games exceptCommand & Conquer: Generals and its expansions have featured the "side bar" for navigation and control as opposed to many other similar games where the control bar is located on the bottom of the screen.
Command & Conquer gameplay typically requires the player to construct a base and acquire resources, in order to fund the ongoing production of various types of forces with which to assault and conquer the opponent's base. All available structures of the faction chosen by the player are constructed on-site at so-called "construction yard" - which typically begin as large-sized vehicles capable of deploying themselves into the aforementioned construction yards, called MCVs or Mobile Construction Vehicle. When a construction yard has finished building a new structure, the player can select a spot near to a preexisting structure in order to place it, where theprefabricated building will rapidly unfold in a distinctive manner.
In all games in the series exceptCommand & Conquer: Generals and its expansionZero Hour, funds are acquired by specialised "harvester" units which bring their cargo (Tiberium for theTiberian series of games or ore or the more valuable gems for theRed Alert series) to a "refinery" structure. This in turn will convert the raw material into usable resources, expressed as credits. The raw materials themselves, in games released beforeRed Alert 2 as well asCommand & Conquer 3 require storage space in the form of refineries and, in the case of excess, "storage silo" structures. InGenerals andZero Hour, funds are collected by two methods: collection of supplies by specialised units and converted to money in "supply centers" or directly produced by specialised units, buildings, or tech buildings at a set interval of time.
All factions have structures and units with similar functions at their disposal. However, they are adjusted to fit each faction's theme and have somewhat varying properties. Units can be classified into infantry, vehicles, and aircraft, each with their own subdivisions (note: in theRed Alert series there is also naval craft available). Unit effectiveness against opponents follows therock-paper-scissors (intransitivity) principle found in mostreal-time strategy games, and units' attack characteristics can vary according to faction.
Virtually every type of structure in the series acts as atech tree node, and additional units, structures and faction-specific abilities will become available as new structures are built and placed. Access to advanced units and abilities may be temporarily blocked if the required structures are destroyed or if they are not being provided with adequate power by the supporting "power plant" structures.
EachCommand & Conquer game has included the ability to play multiplayer games against other players. Each box ofCommand & Conquer contained two CD copies of the game, makingmultiplayer gaming possible with a single purchase of the game. Westwood Studios advertised this on the packaging with the slogan "A second copy, so you and your friend can destroy each other." This resulted inCommand & Conquer becoming the first RTS game title to feature competitive online play,[7] and this is considered the most pertinent outside factor in the success ofCommand & Conquer.[8] All games in the series up toCommand & Conquer: Red Alert 2 featured two CDs that could be used for this reason. Later games did not.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 was noted for being the first RTS game to enable the campaigns to be played cooperatively online; others had only supported single player campaigns. However, it was only possible to connect to other computers through EA's servers and not withLAN play.
Games produced by Westwood use the proprietary Westwood Online system to facilitate multiplayer games over the Internet;Renegade also supportedGameSpy. Games under EA's development continued to use GameSpy, but dropped support for Westwood Online in favor of using EA's own servers. The GameSpy master servers have shut down in 2013,[9] but some game titles can be played viaGameranger.
Command & Conquer, released on September 26, 1995,[10] is the first game in the series, which takes place sometime between 2017 and 2020, according to theCommand & Conquer: Renegade manual. It is considered the title which originally defined and popularized the real-time strategy genre.[7][8][11][12][13][14]Command & Conquer introduced the warring factions of the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the Brotherhood of Nod.Command & Conquer was well received and was widely praised by critics: "Command & Conquer is one of the finest, most brilliantly-designed computer games I have ever seen", saidGameSpot reviewer Chris Hudak.[15]Command & Conquer has attained 94% as an aggregate score fromMetacritic[16] with the less well receivedCovert Operations expansion pack obtaining an aggregate score of 72% after its 1996 release.[17]
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, released on August 27, 1999, takes place in the year 2030. While the originalCommand & Conquer's plot was centered around an allegorical world politics setting,Tiberian Sun shifted this to a morescience fiction-like setting against the apocalyptic background of Tiberium beginning to assimilate vast portions of the Earth's ecosystems. In 1998,Westwood Studios, the developers ofTiberian Sun, was acquired byElectronic Arts. However, EA had no direct part in the development of the title. Compared to its predecessor,Tiberian Sun relies heavily on science fiction technologies and introduces a new isometric game engine featuring varying level terrain to give the impression of a true3D environment.
Thefull motion video is also scripted differently; while the cutscenes ofCommand & Conquer andRed Alert were filmed from a first-person perspective,Tiberian Sun used traditional cinematic shots for its FMVs featuring actors such asJames Earl Jones andMichael Biehn.
Command & Conquer: Renegade, released February 26, 2002, takes place in the final days of the events ofCommand & Conquer and was the lastCommand & Conquer game to be created by Westwood Studios before their liquidation in 2003. Unlike any other games in the series,Renegade is afirst-person shooter.[18] Although receiving average reviews, with an aggregate score of 75% on bothGameRankings and Metacritic,Renegade was praised for its online features.GameSpy awardedRenegade its 2002 "Wish it had been better" award, condemning the single player but saying that "C&C: Renegade's multiplayer was innovative and fun".[19] Online play was praised for encouraging teamwork and coordinated assaults, unlike other contemporary first-person shooters.[20]
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, released March 29, 2007, was a return to the real-time strategy roots of theCommand & Conquer series. As a direct sequel toTiberian Sun,Tiberium Wars is set in 2047 and features the introduction of a third faction, the Scrin. The sequel attained an aggregate score of 85% from both GameRankings and Metacritic.PC Gamer U.S. gave the game its "Editor's Choice" rating at 90%, stating that "one of the greatest RTS franchises of all time returns to glory", whilePC Gamer UK gave it a more reserved rating of 82%, stating that it was "a welcome, but limited, return".
Shortly after the release ofTiberium Wars, the expansion packCommand & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath was announced. Released on March 24, 2008,Kane's Wrath limited the player to only the Brotherhood of Nod in the campaign mode, though the original factions and six new sub-factions are available for the new strategic mode and skirmish mode and it takes place in 2052. Reception was mainly positive with the expansion attaining an aggregate score of 77%.
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, released on March 16, 2010, saw a big change in gameplay from the previousCommand & Conquer by removing the resource gathering and base building elements in previous games as well as the removal of the third faction, the Scrin. It is a direct sequel toKane's Wrath (however not directly following on from its storyline), and is set in 2062, a time when Tiberium has advanced to its next evolutionary stage, and is rapidly spreading across Earth, making it soon to be uninhabitable.
Renegade X, is afree,fan-maderemake ofCommand & Conquer: Renegade. The developers received approval from EA to release their game,[21] and it enteredopen beta on February 26, 2014.Renegade X includes a short single-player campaign called Black Dawn.
Command & Conquer Remastered Collection. EA announced in November 2018 its plans to remasterCommand & Conquer, including expansions andRed Alert, for modern computer systems throughPetroglyph Games. It was released on June 5, 2020.[22]The Remastered Collection received a score of 82/100 on Metacritic, with 48 positive, ten mixed and zero negative reviews, indicating a "generally favorable" reception.[23] Along with the release, EA also released the source code for the remastered versions of the base game andRed Alert to allow players to build improved mods for the games.[24]
Command & Conquer: Red Alert, released on November 22, 1996,[25] is set in an alternate universe 1950s and was originally made to be theprequel toCommand & Conquer[26] establishingRed Alert as theprologue of the entireTiberium series of games.Louis Castle has said that connectingRed Alert with theTiberium series was a "failed experiment".[citation needed]Red Alert introduces theAllies and theSoviets as rival factions roughly analogous toNATO and theWarsaw Pact of theCold War. The game was received well by critics and has the highest average score of anyCommand & Conquer game with an average of over 90% fromGameRankings andMetacritic, unlike the title's two expansion packs,Red Alert: Counterstrike andRed Alert: The Aftermath of which both received below average reviews for the series with 63% and 70% average scores respectively. Both expansions gave the game more missions and more units. For PlayStation only, there was also a separate release to the original calledRed Alert: Retaliation which included all the maps, missions and units ofRed Alert: Counterstrike andRed Alert: The Aftermath, as well as some newly filmed cut-scenes only available withRed Alert: Retaliation. Before being re-released asfreeware on August 31, 2008, byElectronic ArtsCommand & Conquer: Red Alert had sold over three million copies.[27]
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 was released on October 23, 2000. It featured a Soviet invasion of North America with tanks, conscripts, largeairships, and psychically dominated anti-shipgiant squid. Since that game lacked reference to theTiberian series, the connection established in the firstRed Alert game became unclear. However, it has been implied by the original creators of the series, now working atPetroglyph Games, thatRed Alert 2 takes place in a parallel universe that came about as a result of time travel experiments taking place some time into theTiberian series.[28]Red Alert 2 was received fairly positively with an aggregate score of 86% from GameRankings.
An expansion pack toRed Alert 2,Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge was released on October 10, 2001. InYuri's Revenge, an ex-Soviet figure named Yuri, tries to conquer the world using psychic technology and his own private army. The expansion pack received mostly positive reviews.GameRankings reports an average score of 85% based on 31 reviews,[29] makingYuri's Revenge the best received expansion pack in theCommand & Conquer series.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, released on October 28, 2008, followed up on the story ofRed Alert 2 and continued the series' more "light-hearted" take onCommand & Conquer. It introduced many new comical units and the Empire of the Rising Sun faction, ananime inspired version of theEmpire of Japan. Executive producer Chris Corry stated in a pre-release interview thatRed Alert 3 will further differentiate the playable factions from each other and "[play] up the silliness in their faction design whenever possible".[30] This approach was seen as popular withRed Alert 3 obtaining an aggregate score of 82% from Metacritic. A stand-alone expansion toRed Alert 3,Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Uprising was released on March 12, 2009, to fairly poor reviews for the series with an average score of 64% from Metacritic. Another downloadable standalone game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 was released known asCommand & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Commander's Challenge which contained the Commander's Challenge mode of Uprising for consoles.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert was released on October 16, 2009, foriOS which was a continuation of the story ofRed Alert 2 and takes place beforeRed Alert 3. It contained two factions, the Allies and Soviet Union with a third faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun, to be added in its expansion pack. This version of the game is not available in some regions (e.g. the UK).
The Chinese developerTencent made a newiOS version ofRed Alert, with a highly mixed reception from fans online.[31]
Command & Conquer: Generals, released on February 10, 2003, has a plotline which is unrelated to the other games of theCommand & Conquer series.Generals is set in the near future and features theUnited States,China and the fictional terrorist organization, the Global Liberation Army.Generals uses an engine dubbedSAGE (orStrategyActionGameEngine) and is the first fully three-dimensionalCommand & Conquer real-time strategy game. After its release,Generals received mostly positive reviews. Based on 34 reviews,Metacritic gives it a score of 84/100[32] which includes a score of 9.3/10 from IGN.[33]Generals has also received theE3 2002Game Critics Awards Best Strategy Game award.[34] One review noted thatGenerals was the firstCommand & Conquer real-time strategy game that did not include full-motion video cutscenes to tell the story and that it departed from the unique interface and base-building mechanics that had characterized all of the previousCommand & Conquer RTS titles.[35]
An expansion forGenerals,Command & Conquer: Generals – Zero Hour, was released on September 22, 2003, to further theGenerals storyline.Zero Hour added nine new armies to the game, over a dozen new campaign missions, and a gameplay mode known as Generals Challenge.[36] UnlikeGenerals,Zero Hour featured the return of full motion videos to the series.Zero Hour obtained much the same reception asGenerals, with an aggregate score of 85% and 84% from GameRankings and Metacritic respectively.
After EA Los Angeles started up their new internal group Danger Close and switched its focus to theMedal of Honor series, EA launched a new studio namedVictory Games to continue theCommand & Conquer franchise.[37] On December 10, 2011, Electronic Arts posted that the next game in the series would beCommand & Conquer: Generals 2.[38] Three days later, a new browser-based, free-to-play MMOCommand & Conquer game was also under development, under the nameCommand & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances.[39] On December 15,Tiberium Alliances began a closed beta.[40]
In August 2012,Generals 2 was repurposed as afree-to-play game known as simplyCommand & Conquer.[41] The new game would have been based around theGenerals franchise. However, following feedback from players who were able to play the alpha trial, the game was cancelled in October 2013.[42] EA has said that the franchise will continue, but has given no other information at the time.[43][44]
In October 2012, EA releasedCommand & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection onOrigin;[45] it includes every game in the series exceptCommand & Conquer: Sole Survivor.[46]
EA revealedCommand & Conquer: Rivals[when?], which was under development by the newly formed EA Redwood Studios and released forAndroid andiOS mobile devices in December 2018.[47]
Petroglyph Games releasedremastered versions ofRed Alert andCommand and Conquer in June 2020, where both games have been updated with features that improve gameplay for players while also including all expansions initially released for the games.[48] EA also released the source code for the remastered versions ofTiberian Dawn andRed Alert.[49]
In March 2024, EA releasedCommand & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection on Steam, with newly added level editors in accordance to fan demand.[50]
In February 2025, EA made the original source code for Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Generals, Zero Hour and Renegade open-source.[49]
Much of the music for the series was composed and produced byWestwood Studios' former sound director andvideo game musiccomposerFrank Klepacki for the early games, with composition duties being taken on by several others following the liquidation of Westwood Studios in 2003. Klepacki returned to the series in 2008 to assist with the soundtrack forRed Alert 3.
The music has been received positively by critics, although praise was higher with earlier entries.
The original score forCommand & Conquer: Red Alert was composed byFrank Klepacki and was voted the best video game soundtrack of 1996 byPC Gamer andGameslice magazines.[51] Among his most famous songs from the series is the theme ofRed Alert, titled "Hell March", which accents the style of the game with adrenalized riffs of electric guitar, the sounds of marching feet, and synthesizers to a dramatic chant. Originally intended to be the theme for the Brotherhood of Nod faction in theCovert Operations expansion to the original 1995Command & Conquer game,[52] the track eventually ended up enlisting itself as a staple in theRed Alert series instead, and a second version of "Hell March" was specifically created forCommand & Conquer: Red Alert 2.
AfterC&C came out we wasted no time kicking outCovert Ops. I wrote some more ambient style themes they asked me for, and then I began tinkering with this heavy metal song that I was trying to gear towards Nod for the next bigC&C game. Brett Sperry came in my office and said "You got anything I can hear for the newC&C?" I played it for him. He said "What's the name of this one?" I said "Hell March". He said "That's the signature song for our next game".[53]
TheCommand & Conquer series have been a commercial success with over 30 millionCommand & Conquer games sold as of 2009.[54] In 1997,Screen Digest said it was "probably the world's biggest PC CD-ROM entertainment franchise to date."[55] By 1999, it had sold more than 10 million copies.[56]
Games in the series have nearly consistently scored highly on video gamereview aggregator websitesGameRankings andMetacritic, which collect data from numerous review websites. As noted in the table below, the highest rated game isCommand & Conquer with a score of 94% from Metacritic. The highest rated game averaged over both sites isCommand & Conquer: Red Alert with an average of just over 90%. As a series,Command & Conquer games have averaged approximately 80% when including expansion packs and approximately 84% without.
Command & Conquer's long history resulted in Guinness World Records awarding the series six world records in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. These records include "Biggest Selling RTS Series", "Most Number of Platforms for an RTS", and "Longest Running Actor in Video Game Role" forJoe Kucan, who has played the part of Kane, the villainous mastermind of the series, for 15 years.
| Game | Year | GameRankings | Metacritic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Command & Conquer | 1995 | 84.33%[17] | 94%[16] |
| The Covert Operations | 1996 | 72%[57] | 86%[58] |
| Sole Survivor | 1997 | 62%[59] | – |
| Command & Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun | 1999 | 80%[60] | 84%[61] |
| Firestorm | 2000 | 73%[62] | 85%[63] |
| Command & Conquer: Renegade | 2002 | 75%[64] | 75%[65] |
| Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars | 2007 | 85%[66] | 85%[67] |
| Kane's Wrath | 2008 | 77%[68] | 77%[69] |
| Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight | 2010 | 63%[70] | 64%[71] |
| Command & Conquer: Red Alert | 1996 | 91%[72] | 90%[73] |
| Counterstrike | 1997 | 63%[74] | 83%[75] |
| The Aftermath | 1997 | 70%[76] | 85%[77] |
| Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 | 2000 | 86%[78] | 84%[79] |
| Yuri's Revenge | 2001 | 85%[80] | 86%[81] |
| Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 | 2008 | 81%[82] | 82%[83] |
| Uprising | 2009 | 65%[84] | 64%[85] |
| Command & Conquer: Generals | 2003 | 85%[86] | 84%[87] |
| Zero Hour | 2003 | 84%[88] | 83%[89] |
| Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection | 2020 | - | 82%[90] |
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)'Command & Conquer' property probably the world's biggest earning PC CD-ROM entertainment franchise to date.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
