Command & Conquer Generals 2 announced for 2013

Read this article over on RPS!

RPS wrote:

Yes, Bioware are making an RTS. Or more accurately: they’ve now got an RTS studio under the same label. Generals 2 is powered by the Battlefield 3 engine. It’s PC-only.

(bold for emphasis)

How will this not be the greatest RTS ever!

Which companion will I romance first? Will there be witty in game dialogue between tanks?

So its not really Bioware doing this but a new studio brought under the Bioware name. Then some of the Bioware head guys poke their head in every so often giving EA the right call it a Bioware game.

I'm surprised its PC only. EA is finally giving up on trying to put RTS games on the console.

Technically it's Bioware Victory, which was renamed from Victory studios, a new studio. Frostbite pretty much seems established as Renderware used to be, the default engine EA use, perhaps to avoid paying licences to external companies.

As for the game, I can't say I'm enthusiastic about it yet as they've barely shown anything about it. EA have a lot of convincing to do given their recent history with RTS and C&C. As an RTS it's probably a good thing that they're focussing on PC rather than being a jack of all trades across multiple platforms with different requirements.

C&C3 was the last good one and that's been a good long while back now.

Love the idea of the Frostbite engine for an RTS, but they have a lot to prove to me befoer I consider it. Particularly after how bad the last Red Alert and C&C4 were.

Between wikipedia and sources it links to, I'm finding it tough to get a handle on exactly who Victory games are. EA LA was formed with a merger between Westwood and Dreamworks SKG, and then ex-Westwood split off to form Petroglyph and Danger Close (Medal of Honor) is another sub group at EA LA, and then Victory is at LA, Austin TX and Shanghai China.

I'm now at the stage where EA slapping the Bioware name on everything has diluted it to insignificance beyond the original 2 pre-EA-merger studios. You might as well say "Generals2 by Victory". Interestingly in the trailer the BW logo preceeds the EA logo, where as in other trailers (such as the BF3 trailers, EA is first. Ah, Marketing.

Thin_J wrote:

C&C3 was the last good one and that's been a good long while back now.

Love the idea of the Frostbite engine for an RTS, but they have a lot to prove to me befoer I consider it. Particularly after how bad the last Red Alert and C&C4 were.

I thought Red Alert 3 was pretty good but with C&C 4 I think they just tried to do something different and it just didn't work.

Thin_J wrote:

Love the idea of the Frostbite engine for an RTS, but they have a lot to prove to me befoer I consider it. Particularly after how bad the last Red Alert and C&C4 were.

One would figure that after the disasters of RA3 and C&C4, EA would consider the entire franchise damaged goods and actually try to create something new. Generals was too similar to the other standard starcraft clones anyway. They might as well make it Battlefield: The RTS at this point. That's a stronger franchise.

cube wrote:
Thin_J wrote:

Love the idea of the Frostbite engine for an RTS, but they have a lot to prove to me befoer I consider it. Particularly after how bad the last Red Alert and C&C4 were.

One would figure that after the disasters of RA3 and C&C4, EA would consider the entire franchise damaged goods and actually try to create something new. Generals was too similar to the other standard starcraft clones anyway. They might as well make it Battlefield: The RTS at this point. That's a stronger franchise.

Yeah, but they have this IP and they've gotta do something with it, right?

Is it just me or does this look exactly like Generals 1 (with better graphics, of course)?

Andy wrote:

Is it just me or does this look exactly like Generals 1 (with better graphics, of course)?

I think it would be hard to make it not look like Generals really, at the time I though Generals looked really generic, which was part of why it worked, just like 'modern combat' works. It's like vanilla ice cream.

Scratched wrote:

I'm now at the stage where EA slapping the Bioware name on everything has diluted it to insignificance beyond the original 2 pre-EA-merger studios. You might as well say "Generals2 by Victory". Interestingly in the trailer the BW logo preceeds the EA logo, where as in other trailers (such as the BF3 trailers, EA is first. Ah, Marketing.

So true, sigh

Bleh!...Can somebody just wake me up when this love affair with "contemporary/near future warfare" is over please.

I'll take boats that shoot armoured bears and rampaging telekinetic japanese schoolgirls over "gritty torn from the headlines action" ANY day of the week.

Nice, Bioware. Nice. Because when people think Bioware, they think real-world RTS.

Why are they calling this Command & Conquer anyway? It has nothing to do with Command & Conquer, and branding it like that is hardly a positive anymore. Pull a Modern Warfare. Call it Generals 2.

Snark and venom aside, I'm totally looking forward to this. I loved the first Generals game.

stevenmack wrote:

Bleh!...Can somebody just wake me up when this love affair with "contemporary/near future warfare" is over please.

I'll take boats that shoot armoured bears and rampaging telekinetic japanese schoolgirls over "gritty torn from the headlines action" ANY day of the week.

Too bad. It's contemporary warfare, WWII, or zombies. Pick your poison.

Generals wasn't exactly ripped from the headlines material. The GLA had trucks that would upgrade by rolling over bits of blown up tanks. And a tractor that spat out toxic ooze. Oh, and shoes to help your poor downtrodden peons work faster.

I was pleased to see GLA technicals in the footage, and really if it's some crazy hybrid of C&C and World in Conflict they will have a winning formula.

World in Conflict was SO good. I wish it had some sort of skirmish mode though.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Why are they calling this Command & Conquer anyway? It has nothing to do with Command & Conquer, and branding it like that is hardly a positive anymore. Pull a Modern Warfare. Call it Generals 2.

People said the same thing the first time around as there was no link to RA/Tiberium. At this point "Command and Conquer" may as well be translated as "A RTS game from EA", rather than meaning any alternate universe, or particular conventions in their games.

Something I think could be interesting this time is what they do for resources, as I remember Generals1 being a bit different because they got rid of dirt farming. From the screenshots they show GLA-like units such as a technical and AA gun mounted on a truck, and USA-like units, the main site mentions 3 factions, "war on terror". It looks like it could be 'just' a modern version of the old game, which seems similar to what they did with C&C3 (it felt to me like they were trying to remake C&C1).

Seeing as this is both EA and apparently PC exclusive, I will make a bet of absolutely no money whatsoever that this will be some form of free to play experiment. I'm hopeful but EA doesn't do PC exclusive AAA stuff anymore.

I actually really liked Generals, and comparing it to Modern Warfare and such really isn't fair. It still had the C&C silliness, just rather than letting it go completely out of control into Scrin and Dolphins territory for C&C and Red Alert respectively, they used it to make the teams caricatures of their chosen nations, and they did it really well in my opinion. I always liked the original C&C and Red Alert games for their military-but-quirky feel, and never really appreciated the sliding slope of craziness/sci-fi they both went down, other games did that better as far as I'm concerned, Generals felt more like the original C&C to me than any of the sequels.

I'm really excited for a new Generals game, I think the Frostbite engine is a great choice, can't wait to see what they manage!

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Seeing as this is both EA and apparently PC exclusive, I will make a bet of absolutely no money whatsoever that this will be some form of free to play experiment. I'm hopeful but EA doesn't do PC exclusive AAA stuff anymore.

From what I understand, C&C4 was originally intended to be F2P, but got shoehorned into being a full price retail title which pretty much didn't fit, and led to an awful game. From the looks of this, they're putting it as a big impressive title, although there's not really much to go on at this point, it seems to me they're playing it straight (and remember big publishers hate risk). Announcing it with a bunch of other AAA titles, using Frostbite2 which so far has only been used on big AAA titles, pretty screenshots.

Looking at other EA F2P stuff, things like the two battlefield F2P games they seem to start from a lower (by contemporary standards) starting point. F2P generally seems to make it's money over time, versus in a very short window for 'full' titles, which I think would be easier to swallow for EA's beancounters.

Aha! So this is the reason why David Silver went to Bioware.

Well, it will be interesting to see how this unfolds. Hope they do this well.

CHINA WILL GROW LARGER!

Scratched wrote:

Frostbite pretty much seems established as Renderware used to be, the default engine EA use, perhaps to avoid paying licences to external companies.

Renderware was never really that established within EA despite that being the original plan. A few things here and there, but it's mostly been just Criterion to use it.

License fees probably aren't the major reason for switching to internally developed stuff - it's more about generally being dependent on external technology. At some point, your technology partner could get bought by some other company. And no one wants to provide money and, possibly, some insight into your projects to a direct competitor. EA would know - after all, many other publishers dropped RenderWare quickly after Criterion had been acquired by them.

Spunior wrote:

License fees probably aren't the major reason for switching to internally developed stuff - it's more about generally being dependent on external technology.

That's something else I've been noticing, some developers placing a fair amount of resources into home grown engines, Square/Eidos especially with the Crystal, Square and Glacier2 engines.

I'm not sure they'd make a F2P game with Frostbite 2, as that would eliminate a bunch of the potential low to mid level PC players they've been targeting with other F2P games (like the BF games mentioned above).

I am genuinely looking forward to this, as I've owned or played every single C&C game. Yes, even C&C4. I am hoping for a strong community around this game, as there were strong competitive communities for both C&C3/Kane's Wrath and RA3. I'm also hoping for a return of Battlecast Primetime with Generals 2.

I hope this means they'll release the first Generals on Origin. I'd like to play through that again, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna sift through my old PC CDs/DVDs.

The quirks of the C&C series has always been fun for me as well. I'll get mah wreanch. Haw diggity!

This seems like a game I'll purchase and then not play as much as I thought. I picked up The First Decade about a year ago...played a few Red Alert 1 skirmishes, some of The Generals campaign...and haven't touched it since.

Maybe I have fallen out of RTS games though...which seems odd to me. On one hand Warcraft 3 might be my favorite game ever. This is probably because it is the first game I ever read some news on, got hyped up about, and bought with my only money (also, 1000+ recorded games of DotA and Tower Defenses over several years). On another hand I never finished the Frozen Throne campaign.

I have 0 interest in this, but I'm intrigued by the possibilities of Jon Van Carnegham (yes, the guy who did Might & Magic / Heroes of M&M) heading up Victory studios.

It's a shame they have to slap the Bioware label on this. If it's PC exclusive, that's superfluous since they don't need to "introduce" us to a franchise that's been around for almost 20 years. I could see them adding it for consoles where C&C has minimal presence.

Unless they're trying to use the Bioware label for "heady" Strategy/RPG games akin to EA Social (which will probably be replaced with the PopCap brand) and EA Sports.

Command & Conquer has a reputation for dumb (pardon me, "campy") cutscenes. The "heady" label doesn't fit too well.

Well, this is interesting. Sort of.

looks as though we’re actually getting two new Command & Conquer games. We know about the Frostbyte-powered, militaristic Generals 2, but the Tiberium universe yet lives too. Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances is a browser-based, HTML 5-powered “epic strategy MMO”

we now also know that this will indeed be free to play, and that the beta kicks off tomorrow.