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"Command & Conquer" Remastered refreshes the old love

5.6.2020

Translation: machine translated

"Command & Conquer" is one of the most influential strategy series ever. The brand dominated the genre for over ten years. Then it disappeared into oblivion - with the remastered version, which is being released today, EA wants to rekindle the old fire.

The mixture of real-time strategy, huge armies and an abstruse story - told in over-the-top video sequences and with real actors - made "Command & Conquer" a cult hit. The game sold millions of copies and spawned countless spin-offs. The first instalment was released in 1995 and the last, "Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances", in 2012, but its star had already begun to wane years earlier.

Developer Westwood had no idea this would happen 25 years ago. The first "Command & Conquer" built on the experiences of the equally successful "Dune II". Instead of sandworms and alien planets, however, there is an alternative history lesson with two factions called the Global Defence Initiative (GDI) and the Brotherhood of Nod. GDI and Nod are engaged in a bitter war for world domination and the mysterious substance called Tiberium. This is what you harvest in the game with your collector's vehicles to build your factories and produce soldiers and tanks. As the game progresses, you unlock more and more troops and vehicles and can use them to scout the often huge maps for enemies.

The real-time revolution

The huge troop units that you send into battle, combined with free base building, were something completely new. "Starcraft" was still three years in the future at the time. It is immensely satisfying to storm the enemy base with a battalion of the legendary mammoth tanks and reduce everything to rubble. The term "Tank Rush" also comes from "Command & Conquer". Skilful players manage to produce and dispatch huge numbers of tanks within a few minutes. A loved and hated tactic, especially in multiplayer mode.

"Command & Conquer" offers an enormous variety of different units. There are soldiers with flamethrowers, tanks that turn invisible, defence towers such as the Obelisk of Light, which turns your troops into bloody puddles of pixels (or black puddles in the censored German version with androids instead of humans) and of course the devastating super weapons. The GDI has the Ion Cannon, with which you can cut a swathe of destruction through the enemy - the Nod have the classic atomic bomb.

The captivating gameplay is rounded off by a groovy soundtrack and FMV cutscenes with real actors. It tells the story of the war between the cult of the bald messiah Kane and the United Nations, or GDI.

"Command & Conquer" triggered a wave of imitators. Real-time strategy games dominated the gaming landscape before the first-person shooter shot to the top and the series lost itself in increasingly meaningless successors.

What's new in the remastered version

In addition to the original game, the Remastered Collection also contains the sequel "Command & Conquer Red Alert" and three expansions. The most obvious change is the jump to UHD. The original DOS version ran at just 320 x 200 pixels. The Windows 95 version at least managed SVGA, with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. If you were playing single player, you could switch back and forth between the versions at the touch of a button. However, the resolution has not simply been increased, but textures have also been optimised. The cutscenes have also been optimised, which would otherwise have been almost impossible to watch. Even the soundtrack has been re-recorded by the original composer from back then.

EA, or rather Petroglyph Games, which is responsible for the realisation, has also worked on the game itself. Even some former Westwood employees are involved. The menus have been streamlined, the controls simplified, replay and spectator functions for multiplayer added and missions that were previously only available for consoles are also included. Perhaps the most promising addition concerns modding support. EA has surprisingly made the source code of "Command & Conquer" available. Steam and Origin players should therefore soon be able to look forward to a whole new wave of additional content. You can find all the changes here

If "Command & Conquer Remastered" is a success, there is a good chance that the series will be continued with a new instalment. What do you think? What do you think of the remake?

"Command & Conquer Remastered" is available from Friday on Steam and Origin.

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Philipp Rüegg

Senior Editor

Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.ch

As a child, I wasn't allowed to have any consoles. It was only with the arrival of the family's 486 PC that the magical world of gaming opened up to me. Today, I'm overcompensating accordingly. Only a lack of time and money prevents me from trying out every game there is and decorating my shelf with rare retro consoles.

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"Command & Conquer" Remastered refreshes the old love

The real-time revolution

What's new in the remastered version

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