As Generals 2 After the release of
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, much of the
Command & Conquer team, within EA Los Angeles, was laid off in 2010 causing the future of the series to be cast in doubt. In October, a senior vice-president from Electronic Arts had told the media that the
Command & Conquer series would live on as a brand from
Dead Space developers,
Visceral Games, with a title from the series to be released by that developer being "far-off" and whether or not he was referring to this game is not clear. The first official announcement of a new
Command & Conquer game in development came in February 2011, when Electronic Arts revealed the formation of a new studio known as Victory Games. In the studios' first Q&A session with the official
Command & Conquer blog, it was openly stated that they were developing a new title in the
Command & Conquer series with the future of the series being the studio's general focus. The new studio consisted of members from the previous EA Los Angeles development team as well as some new staff members. Its general manager was
Jon Van Caneghem from
Trion Worlds. The title's formal announcement was then teased as a game from the "next big BioWare franchise" and was due for a revealing at the 2011
Spike Video Game Awards. The game was then speculated to be either a new entry from defunct studio
Pandemic's Mercenaries series or a new game from the
Command & Conquer series, which turned out to be an accurate analysis. Subsequently, more rumors began to indicate that the game was indeed a
Command & Conquer game called
Command & Conquer: Alliances due to a series of domain registrations by EA for a game of that name; though this turned out to be a side project by Phenomic, called
Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances. The game was finally formally unveiled as
Command & Conquer: Generals 2 on December 10 at the 2011
Spike Video Game Awards as a title developed by what would become BioWare Victory. However, in November 2012, the BioWare label was dropped and the studio was renamed to its former name Victory Games.
Change to free-to-play model In August 2012,
Generals 2 was repurposed to a
free-to-play game known as simply
Command & Conquer. The content which had been built for
Generals 2 was to be delivered into the new
C&C game.
Promotion and cancellation From then on, news of the upcoming game was relatively quiet. In mid-December 2012, Victory Games hosted a C&C Community Summit where select members were invited and given the chance to play the game and share feedback with the developers. It was later on that Victory Games announced the third faction as the Asian-Pacific Alliance. In May EA released a development video diary stating the developers' intention to constantly improve on the final product based on the players' feedback. At
E3 2013, EA released a new trailer of the game as well as the beta going live in the summer. On August 5, a second development video diary was released showing the design process of modifying the GLA Bomb Truck unit from
Command & Conquer: Generals into the GLA Nuke Truck. Victory Games also released wallpapers of the generals of each faction, starting with the APA generals and later the EU and GLA within a few days of each other. Both EA and Victory Games stated that
Command and Conquer would be showcased at Cologne's Gamescom 2013. In addition to the press conference, a trailer revealed that campaign missions were to be made available next year. The game has been canceled as of October 29, 2013 due to negative fan feedback over an economy-based, multiplayer experience. The cancellation statement released by the company cited multiplayer for
Command & Conquer being its downfall.
Potential reinstation In November 2013, EA said the game will still be developed by a new game studio, and customers who bought the
Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection will still receive an invite to the beta. In 2014, EA was looking for a new developer of the reboot. No information relating to the game has since been released. ==References==