There's nothing inherently wrong with this kind of free-to-play mobile strategy game. On YouTube, EA’s official announcement video has 12,000 thumbs down and 359 thumbs up on the old Zero Hour forums, people have come out of a decade-long hibernation to shit on the announcement. In the E3 demo, a game that had just seemed to be getting interesting-the GDI player had just gotten a Mammoth Tank on the map while the Nod player had some sort of helicopter that the GDI player had no counter for-ended because of the game’s time limit.īecause it’s free-to-play, it will probably require an intense amount of grinding or deep pockets to unlock better units, rather than the standard and time-tested tech trees present in most RTSes. Games seem like they will last, at most, five minutes. Gone (or seriously dumbed down) is rushing, turtling, unit amassing, flank attacks, map exploring, and tech tree development. Until the back-stabbing begins, that is – and GDI and Nod start facing off for the final time as the allied world leaders attempt to uncover Kane’s intent and put a stop to it once and for all.In Rivals, two players compete to control grids on a tiny map, and whoever happens to be standing on them when a nuclear missile countdown clock finishes gets to launch it. It’s certainly got our attention, picking things up almost fifteen years after Command and Conquer 3 with a reluctant GDI having teamed up with Nod to bring the tiberium infestation under control and harness the alien crystal as a power source that is leading the world into a new golden age. Aren’t the hardcore players more likely to be interested in multiplayer gameplay?īut that doesn’t mean that long-time fans won’t be interested in the plot, obviously. That said, we do we find it a little unusual at EA is changing the fundamental gameplay to entice new players and hoping to still interest hardcore gamers with a in-depth and cinematic story.

Whatever Kane’s endgame is, it’ll apparently involve reaching back to all past Command and Conquer games and pulling together all sorts of story references, from The Forgotten to the Tacitus. Kane has been killed, thwarted and betrayed so many times that actually getting to see him accomplish his mission is a tantalising prospect.

Here lies C&C’s most exciting prospect then – that we may finally find out who or what the demagogic Kane actually is and what his plan for Earth might entail.

Ea command and conquer 4