Oh Dear: C&C Tiberium Alliances May Have 'Borrowed'
If I were EA, it would be right about now I'd be issuing a memo to all my employees and contracted developers to say, "Hey guys, um, can we all stop doing overtly dumb things for a bit? Cheers, thanks, love EA." With an internet backlash against the company, part deserved, part self-entitled arsetits leaping on the latest channel for their boundless streams of hate, now was perhaps not the best time for it to be noticed that Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances has - allegedly - been copying its tanks from Warhammer 40K. (Usually slapping in an "allegedly" is a coward's way of making an accusation, but you might want to see just how similar they are in the pics below.)
As reported by Eurogamer, and spotted by Reddit, the designs for the new free-to-play C&C game do seem somewhat... borrowed.
C&C:TA's Grinder Tank is, pretty undeniably, an exact replica of a seemingly obscure (it doesn't have entries on various 40K wikis, few images online, etc) 1995 Orc Bonecruncha. Here's EA's:
and here's 40K's:
The other design under accusation is the Bombard Tank, which it is claimed replicates 40k's '95 Baneblade. There's certainly a bit more deviation here, and it's a fairly traditional tank shape, but then you start spotting the details. Here's EA's:
and here's 40K's (as painted by on Phil Yip):
Clearly people are out gunning for EA right now, and obviously it wasn't like EA top brass chewed on their cigars and barked, "GO COPY TWENTY YEAR OLD WARHAMMER DESIGNS!" This is, possibly, a stupid decision by someone or a few people, possibly at German developers EA Phenomic. We've approached EA for a comment. And hey, who knows, maybe they licensed them? We're waiting to hear back.