News

Victory: Command & Conquer going free-to-play "surprisingly liberating"
Posted: 26.02.2013 14:10 by Simon Priest Comments: 6
Developer Victory Games is behind the upcoming new Command & Conquer; the new free-to-play Command & Conquer. Groans, sighs and bloodcurdling shrieks aside - it's actually 'a good thing', says Victory.

Quality is compromised when you "have to hit a date," says Tim Morten, whereas F2P lets them keep working at it making it "better and better over the years." The new C&C is powered by Frostbite 2.

Basically the team is less rushed to get everything in for launch, which helps them focus on fun and "satisfying gameplay." It will be set in the Generals universe.

"Being able to focus on quality over a specific time frame,” explains senior development director Tim Morten. “Compromises get made when you have to hit a date. We’re going to keep making this better and better over the years.”

“I think that free-to-play impact has been surprisingly liberating. We traditionally have to race to get all the features done, to but it on a disc and in a box, but now we’re less concerned about having everything on day-one than how successful it is in terms of fun satisfying gameplay.” Originally billed as Command & Conquer: Generals 2, Victory has transformed it into a free-to-play platform for the veteran PC strategy franchise, still to be powered by DICE's Frostbite 2 engine.

Already there are plans afoot to eventually include the Tiberian and Red Alert universes.

"So, we like to say that 2013 is…the beginning of the next 10 years of Command & Conquer games, and we’ve been building this platform and this first game to start that process,” general manager Jon Van Caneghem told PC Gamer.

"As we mentioned, our first outing is going to be in the Generals universe…but over time, we want to add the Tiberium universe and the Red Alert universe, even a new fiction we’ve been working on.”

“This really becomes a service that just goes, and goes, and goes,” he added. “We’ll be adding content weekly, monthly, constantly going forward: new universes, campaigns, single-player, more game modes.”

Command & Conquer releases on PC in 2013. Check out the official website and register for the beta.

Source: NowGamer

Comments

By nocutius (SI Elite) on Feb 26, 2013
nocutius
I hope this turns out well, it doesn't even need to be great just as long as it's not bad.
On the bright side, it would be impossible to make a worse C&C game than the last one.
By djole381 (SI Elite) on Feb 26, 2013
djole381
Don't jinx it nocutius :)
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Feb 26, 2013
herodotus
I haven't played "Command & Conquer Online" but from what I've read and seen, its another Pay-to-Win. I just hope this isn't the way with this one, as "Generals 2" is long overdue and a bad release will cause more than a quiet uproar.
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Feb 27, 2013
FoolWolf
Seeing as what has happened to all the other once great RTS games (bar a few) I'm not holding my breath for this one. Oh and you would still need Origin right?
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Feb 27, 2013
herodotus
This is what it is most baffling to me. There is only ONE game that requires Origin to run: "BF3". The others that are installed through Origin (including "SW:TOR") run happily without Origin being started up at all. It is not required to play the game.
This is where Origin differs from both Steam and UPlay. Sure your playing stats are not recorded, but who the hell cares?
By JPerry06 (SI Core) on Feb 28, 2013
JPerry06
I will be jumping in to see what its like. Fingers crossed its good enough to keep you entertained.