The rise and fall of Command & Conquer: Looking back on the game that defined a genre
“Construction complete.” That’s a phrase bound to unlock the core memory of anyone who’s had some experience with Command & Conquer since its original release on PC in *checks notes*… 1995. As it approaches its 30th anniversary, there’s no better time to look back on the massively successful series and its spin-offs that arguably brought real-time strategy into the mainstream. With over 25 million copies sold, there’s no doubt that Command & Conquer is up there with gaming’s greatest, but this war machine did end up breaking down — and it did so in spectacular fashion.
It all began with a bit of Spice
Fans of Command & Conquer may have seen the major parallel between it and Frank Herbert’s Dune, and that’s no coincidence.
It all began in the early 90s when gaming was saturated with action/adventure platformers that required quick reflexes but did little to tax the brain. But there was a bit of a shift happening, particularly with TechnoSoft’s Herzog Zwei, where players took control of a transforming mech to shift units around the map as a jet or change into a robot to get stuck in the action themselves. It was a game that presented a different way of playing, allowing players to be direct while also allowing them to strategise where best to put their resources for the best chance of victory.
Westwood Studios looked to get in on this seedling trend as well. And they did, developing a sequel to the Dune video game. Lead game producer Brett Sperry was the driving force behind the game’s success, believing that Spice was the key. “It was an intellectual puzzle for me,” Sperry told The Digital Antiquarian when talking about making the wargame genre more accessible. “How can we take this really small wargame category, bring in some fresh ideas, and make it a fun game that more gamers can play?”
Of course, Spice became the pivotal driving force behind it. With an isometric 2D view and being controlled entirely by mouse, Dune allowed Westwood to create a game based around resource management and army building, all hinging on the gathering of that vital resource.
Gathering it allowed players to build and expand their bases and armies by training infantry, building armoured fighting vehicles and structures to strengthen their armies, all in real-time with a few clicks of a mouse. It was simple but effective and felt like a revelation against other strategy games, which were largely sluggish turn-based affairs. Players didn’t have the freedom of time; they had to think on their feet and adapt on the fly, or risk defeat. Dune II not only became the prototype for Command & Conquer, but its combination of real-time tactics and arcade action turned out to be a groundbreaking hit for the genre.
With rave reviews and the power of word of mouth, Dune II: The Battle For Arrakis sold over 250,000 copies. While the Dune IP gave Westwood the chance to make the game they wanted, the result benefited the Herbert estate as well, helping to keep Dune relevant in a time long after the hype of David Lynch’s film adaptation had dried up.
Making war all their own
With the success of Dune behind them, Westwood was looking to build on it with something that was their own.
“The ideas for Command & Conquer were developing even as we were finishing Dune II. We learned a lot while we were making Dune II, just as it is with every game,” Sperry said. They wanted to stand on their own two feet, having learned a lot in developing Dune II. “You always get to the end of a project and think, ‘Next time, we’d love to do this and this and this.’ Command & Conquer was the net result of the Dune II wish list.”
He had a strong vision for what he and the team wanted to achieve. And with Dune II’s commercial and critical success, it was time to build what they say was the ultimate RTS in Command & Conquer, without the help (or the limitations) of being propped up by somebody else’s world.
They wanted to keep the core gameplay and resource management intact, but they needed a new ‘spice’. They shifted toward a more contemporary setting for their game too, with Sperry believing a setting centred around modern warfare would make the game more accessible to a wider audience. He figured future wars would shift away from governments fighting governments, toward Western society as a whole pitted against a decentralised terror organisation.
And so Command & Conquer was born.
Set in an alternate future where two factions, the technologically-superior Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the pragmatic guerrilla force of the Brotherhood of Nod, battle for control of Tiberium, a mysterious and powerful alien resource that arrives on Earth on a meteor that strikes the river Tiber.
The action was faster and more tactically layered than any previous RTS. The technology powering the experience was superb and would push any PC to its limits. Countless units could fight at one time, while the story unfolded through cutting-edge 90s full-motion videos. It even introduced the charismatic Nod leader Kane, arguably one of gaming’s most iconic characters.
Command & Conquer set a precedent for cinematic storytelling with its use of FMV as well. Throughout all of its games, it used computer-generated sets to record scenes that framed each mission with an impressive cast of notable actors. This kind of thing hadn’t been done before, and with the likes of James Earl Jones, Michael Biehn, Tricia Helfer and Josh Holloway lending their likenesses over the years, it became a staple of the franchise to see these recognisable faces play out these ridiculous war fantasies. Even Hollyoaks’ Gemma Atkinson got in on the act. Westwood Studios clearly knew the audience they were aiming for.
The best of them all? Without a doubt, it was the legendary Tim Curry, who delivered this absurd line in Red Alert 3. And the best part? According to the team, that was the first take. The line that became a meme perfectly encapsulates the self-aware absurdity of Command & Conquer as the franchise grew.
It’s no surprise, then, that Command & Conquer launched to impeccable reviews and shifted over three million copies. Westwood Studios weren’t looking to rest on their laurels, though. They were onto something good and wanted to keep going.
With each iteration, more features were added, meaning more ways to play, and of course, the means to destroy your enemies crept into the absurd. What started with rifles and tanks grew into Tesla coils, time travel, parachuting war bears, and squadrons of attack dolphins — not forgetting the giant squids. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.
Our base is under attack
But through all the titles, Command & Conquer and its expansions, Red Alerts 1-3, Generals and the eventual sequels Tiberian Sun and Tiberian Wars, it seemed that while the quality was still there, the new features, unit types, and celebrity cameos were papering over the cracks that ultimately led to Command & Conquer’s downfall: standing still.
Sure, a lot of folks would like to point the finger at Electronic Arts for killing the franchise, especially if the comments section of the announcement trailer for the infamous Command & Conquer Rivals is anything to go by, and while Peter Moore himself came out and declared that EA could and would do better, this war coming to an end seems most likely because Westwood got too much right on their first attempt.
Lead designer Erik Yeo was aware of the problem back in 2002: player (and developer) expectations. Following up a game like Command & Conquer was always going to be difficult. “The level of expectation has really changed,” Yeo said in an interview with CVG Magazine back in 2007 (accessed via the Internet Wayback Machine). “People always expect games to be fun, but for each C&C; or Half-Life or Diablo the expectation increases. People want the games to be everything the one before it was plus much more. Speaking as a gamer, that’s not unreasonable. However it makes development time and costs skyrocket.”
It’s a sentiment that has only grown up until now. Expectations of new games have never been higher, and making good games has never been more expensive and time-consuming.
And how do you go about meeting those expectations? Rade Stojsavljevic was a producer on Command & Conquer’s big sequel, Tiberian Sun. In his blog on Game Developer, he outlines how trying to make something bigger and better than C & C and Red Alert only caused them more and more problems.
“Trying to fill the shoes left behind by Red Alert proved to be daunting. If you had asked a dozen people what they expected out of Tiberian Sun before it was released, you would have heard a dozen different answers. We devoted a lot of effort to add as many features into the game as possible instead of just trying to make the best game we could.
Tiberian Sun started strong and we developed a robust and large feature set we intended to fulfill. The project started smoothly, but as we progressed, the temptation to add new features not included in the design document grew.”
Maybe leaving more features on the cutting room floor would have helped Tiberian Sun. Stojsavljevic believed that less is more and that maybe there were features in that game that weren’t quite up to scratch, and ultimately were a detriment to the game.
Unit lost
The war came to a terrible end with the release of Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight. With no more base building, caps on unit control, and a shift away from Tiberium to territory control, Westwood and EA decided to be bold and push into new territory.
It backfired spectacularly.
An always-online requirement and changes to the fundamental formula of how the game worked did not go down well at all with the player base, and while there was praise for the game from some critics, the fan response to the game was overwhelmingly hostile.
It put paid to the franchise as a whole, with projects cancelled or repurposed, and teams being put on to other EA projects. The future of Command & Conquer looked pretty bleak, but in recent years fans have been given a reason to hope that this is one war that might spark up again.
Welcome back, commander
That hope may well lie with the people who started it all. Petroglyph Games, featuring a handful of team members who worked on the original Command & Conquer games, was at the helm of the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, which released in 2020. It went down pretty well with fans and even brought about speculation of further remasters. Also, as of March this year, the entire game roster is now available again on Steam.
With the series experiencing a resurgence thanks to nostalgia, and the sour taste Command & Conquer 4 left now long forgotten, maybe there’s a chance that a brand-new entry into the franchise could happen. In the words of Yuri, “Time will tell, sooner or later, time will tell.”
