EA quietly announce a Command & Conquer anniversary remaster
Marching through the Tiberium once more
Rather than open with a press release or trailer, EA have chosen to quietly announce an official Command & Conquer remaster on Reddit. In a post from EA producer Jim Vessella, he says the studio have plans for the series's fast-approaching 25th anniversary. While it sounds like it's just one game being updated for now, Vessella's statement suggests that more may be planned.
He has also been answering a few questions in the Reddit thread, and has confirmed that there will be no microtransactions attached, which is always nice to hear. Below, a mostly-unrelated (but official) video of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 to remind us all just how silly this game of soldiers could get.
Update: EA also made this announcement on the OpenRA forums, another major old-school C&C fan-hub.
"we’ve been exploring some exciting ideas regarding remastering the classic PC games, and already have the ball rolling on our first effort"
The first few C&C games are past due for a lick of paint, to be honest. As charming as they are, the music is over-compressed, the FMV is grainy and the UI is only one step further evolved than genre prototype Dune 2: Battle For Arrakis. Some fans have already taken up the gauntlet, and the impressive Tiberium Dawn Redux mod for C&C Generals gives the old strategy gem a 3D lick of paint, but it doesn't quite have the same feel. There seems to be some debate in the Reddit thread as to whether the remaster should be 3D, and how much of the original UI should be re-used.
Of course, there's no assurance that any of this will survive long enough to make it to stores, digital or otherwise. The series has had a rough few years, including plans to reboot the franchise as a free-to-play game ending up on the scrapheap despite visible development progress. Series fans were also not best pleased at EA's recent announcement to bring the series back in the form of a lightweight competitive mobile game. Still, fingers crossed - if they can bring us Kane's polished baldness in HD, I'll be happy.