Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

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Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Developer(s)	EA Los Angeles
Publisher(s)	EA Games
Designer(s)	Jason Bender
Engine	Strategy Action Game Engine (SAGE)
Release date(s)	March, 2007
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Rating Pending
Platform(s)	PC (Windows), Xbox 360
System requirements	To be announced. Supposedly similar to the BFMEII requirements
Input	Keyboard, Mouse

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars^[1] is the long-awaited sequel to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun and its expansion pack Firestorm. Taking place at the advent of and during the "Third Tiberium War", the Brotherhood of Nod - now a superpower with a majority support of the world's population - launches an unexpected worldwide offensive against the Global Defense Initiative, abruptly ending a period of seventeen years of silence and crippling GDI forces everywhere. With the odds tipped in Nod's favor this time, GDI field commanders rally their troops and begin to combat the Brotherhood's sudden and mysterious reemergence, trying to restore lost hope. The game will also feature the introduction of a new third faction to the Tiberian series.

Contents 1 Known facts 1.1 The plot 1.2 Sides overview 1.3 Casting 1.4 Other known facts 2 Background 3 External links 3.1 Fan Sites 3.2 Media 4 References

[edit] Known facts

The known facts for Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars are relatively few and far between, and may be subject to change over the course of the game's development.

[edit] The plot

The story of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars kicks off in the year of 2047 (roughly sixteen to seventeen years after the events of Firestorm). While the conflict between the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod appears to have subsided substantially ever since, Tiberium infestation has begun to reach critical levels and continues to destroy the Earth's ecosystems at an alarming rate, prompting GDI to divide the world into three different geographical zones based on the levels of local infestation. 30% of the world's surface has been designated as "red zones", which have suffered the worst contamination and can no longer support human - or otherwise carbon-based - life. 50% of the regions in the world have been designated as "yellow zones", which are dangerously contaminated yet contain most of the world's population. Decades of war and civil unrest have left these regions in a state of social collapse and have continued to provide the Brotherhood of Nod with opportunity for concealment as well as large-scale recruitment over the years. The remaining 20% of the Earth's surface is unscarred by Tiberium outbreak and is relatively untouched by war. These "blue zones" are considered the last refuge and hope of the human civilized world and have been placed under the direct protection of the Global Defense Initiative.

In March 2047, the Brotherhood of Nod suddenly fires a nuclear missile at GDI's orbiting command station "Philadelphia" destroying the fulcrum of GDI's senior command structure in a single major blow. Since the end of the Second Tiberium War, Nod has silently built up its influence and its military potential into the status of a true superpower, and is now supported by a majority of the world's population through medical aid, enforcement of stability, and hate-mongering against GDI and the "blue zone" populations from within the "yellow zone" territories. Isolated and unprepared to handle the offensives led by Black Hand shock troops across the globe, GDI regional field commanders take charge directly and begin rallying their demoralized troops, hoping to win a new victory over Nod.

As the conflict rages on however, forces of alien origin suddenly enter the fray and alter the nature of the Third Tiberium War entirely. The precise connection that exists between these alien creatures and the Tiberium substance, as well as the original conflict between the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod, remains to be unveiled.

[edit] Sides overview

Global Defense Initiative

The Global Defense Initiative's internal structure and organization is quite similar to a supranational and large-scale integration of all of the world's major modern day conventional armies into a single globalized military force. GDI is capable of instantly deploying vast quantities of well-trained and well-equipped soldiers backed by powerful ground, air and naval assets to any point on the globe, and this in ways that are considerably more organized, advanced, as well as on a much greater scale than any conventional real-life military force of today possibly could. GDI troops utilize both superior staying power and firepower (sacrificing some mobility in the process), making them typically much more powerful than Nod forces in direct open confrontations, but also more cumbersome and less flexible, the exploitation of which the Brotherhood is notoriously adept at through its combinations of futuristic guerilla warfare with uniquely advanced Tiberium-based technological prowess.

Brotherhood of Nod

The Brotherhood of Nod is a mysterious, enigmatic and highly militant Abrahamic cult of an allegedly ancient origin, which in modern times began to show the combined characteristics of a religious movement, a multinational corporation and a nation-state, while actually being none of the three in itself. The globalized society/organization is led by a mysterious man who is known only as Kane, and its influence in the world at the advent of the events in which Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars will take place eventually has reached nothing short of the status of an unconventional superpower. The Brotherhood of Nod represents a flexible, elusive army which thrives on the synergy between cunning low-tech guerilla warfare and elite, highly-trained forces equipped with state-of-the-art communications gear and the single most advanced weapon systems available, which all have been derived from the Brotherhood's uniquely adept understanding of Tiberium-based technologies. Nod's tactics are highly radical and appear more cruel than GDI's, often showing little to no regard for human life, and their fascination with Tiberium also leads them to use the highly toxic and dangerous substance offensively whenever possible. Nod forces are completely dedicated to Kane and the Brotherhood its cause, and are well known to fight and willingly die for either. However, in the FMV trailers, it is revealed that after the arrival of the aliens a segment of Nod under General Kilian Qatar splits and fights both them and Kane's faction.

Unnamed Alien Race

The december 2006 issue of the Games for Windows magazine confirmed that the mysterious third side will be an extra-terrestrial species, the units and structures of which feature distinct insect-like appearances. It is as of yet unknown if the race has also been officially designated the "Scrin", or indeed if they effectively even are the Scrin, however in recent trailer footage Kane himself is heard to refer to them as "the Visitors" and is seen to become enraged when he learns his General Kilian Qatar considers the alien species to be a greater threat to Nod than even the GDI. Further in-game specifics on this alien species are still to be revealed, but it has been previously suggested by the development team of C&C 3 that certain units of this side will be able to cause ion storms, and will be able to otherwise interact significantly with Tiberium on the battlefield. The alien third faction was also revealed to be featuring units that will be enhanced by the presence of ion storms over the battlefield.

Mutant Mercenaries

In their November 2006 podcast, EALA revealed the existence of a "mutant hovel", a type of tech building that a player can take over and use to build a variety of mutant mercenary units. While they do not make up a new side on their own, they are a useful addition to any army as mutant soldiers traditionally have greater combat skills than the basic Nod and GDI infantry units.

[edit] Casting

As of October 18, 2006, several actors are confirmed to have been casted in the cutscenes of Tiberium Wars ^[2] -- Josh Holloway (Lost) will appear as a Nod Intelligence officer by the name of Ajay, Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) will be cast as a character named Kilian Qatar, Michael Ironside (Top Gun, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series) as the Global Defense Initiative's General Jack Granger, Billy Dee Williams (Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back) as GDI Director Redmond Boyle, Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica) as Lt. Sandra Telfair, Ivana Bozilovic (Wedding Crashers) as Kirce James and Shauntay Hinton (Criminal Minds) as the reporter Brittany Bhima.

Electronic Arts Los Angeles has also stated that it will be employing the talents of several real-world news casters, including Shanon Cook (CNN reporter) and John Huck (Las Vegas Fox News anchor), to deliver TV-style reports of the Tiberium Wars within the game's cutscenes.^[3]

EA has confirmed that an early trailer, in which the iconical character of Kane was portrayed, did indeed feature Joseph D. Kucan, who will return to reprise his role as the infamous leader of the Brotherhood of Nod for Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.

[edit] Other known facts

Other known facts about the game include:

• The return of full motion videos, after being notably absent in Command & Conquer: Renegade and Command & Conquer: Generals. [1]

• The return of resource harvesting and Mobile Construction Vehicles.

• Frank Klepacki, the game music composer for all Command & Conquer games except Generals, will not be composing the music for Command & Conquer 3. Klepacki is currently a full-time employee at Petroglyph, and both himself and the EA Community Manager have stated that he is not on the game's development team nor has he been asked to join [2]. EA's community manager has however stated that the team is aware of fans' concerns, that EA's audio team has been studying Klepacki's music from the past ten years, and that "fans will not be disappointed". On 5 December 2006, CNCZ.com has reported that Steve Jablonsky will be doing the soundtrack of C&C3.

• Command & Conquer 3 will use the pre-Generals right sidebar interface, as revealed in an interview on IGN at this link: "It's also worth mentioning the return of the side-bar interface: Our in-game UI for C&C3 is a side-bar that will feel familiar to C&C players but it has some added features that make it more useful - and make it feel interesting and new. We are combining the centralized production queues in the classic C&C side-bar with contextual space for selected units and structures. The new UI lets you quickly build units and structures, easily control grouped units, and access your build queues anywhere on the map - even in the middle of a battle. But you can still get lots of information about your selected units and activate their special abilities - which are pretty much expected in the latest generation RTS games. We think our interface for C&C3 is the best of both worlds."

• The development team, with help from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has devised information to see how Tiberium would work in real-world science.

• AI will be improved and campaigns will be more immersive.

• A brand new version of SAGE (Strategy Action Game Engine) will be used. SAGE technology was used to power the RTS series Generals, so it stands to reason that most of the SAGE benefits (zooming in and out of specific areas on the map, 360 degree roation of the map, etc) will be present in C&C3.

• Multiplayer will feature VoIP support.

• The game will eventually be released for the Xbox 360, with Louis Castle stating "and I know for a fact that they [the developers of Battle For Middle Earth 2 on 360] are doing this because these are the same guys, the same team, who's doing Command & Conquer 3 and they're definitely going to release it for the 360, you heard it here. And so what they are doing is they are really using Battle for Middle-earth II to sort of use it as a spring board to test, to see, how it is going to work for Command & Conquer 3, so they are trying to almost use this BFMEII as a beta; a very good beta."

• EA is planning several fan summits for previews, feedback and discussions.

• The game will not be featuring the famous dramatic installation procedures of its predecessors in the series, and will be given a generic installation sequence.^[4]

• The announced possibility of there being significant differences in game-play when playing within different types of 'Zones' is no longer being considered by the development team. ^[5]

[edit] Background

A sequel to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun has been expected since after Tiberian Sun’s release in 1999. A hypothetical sequel was called "Tiberian Twilight" due to EA copyrights throughout the Command & Conquer community. Work on a sequel is believed to have been started at Westwood Studios in 2001, but Electronic Arts decided to shift the focus of a sequel from a science fiction theme to a modern theme based on current world conflicts. The work on a sequel was used to make Command & Conquer: Generals and other current SAGE engine based games. Just before Generals was released, EA announced that Westwood Studios in Las Vegas would be closing and would be consolidated into EA Los Angeles. This split the Westwood team, with some members not willing to relocate and thus quitting and the rest moving to Los Angeles to work at the new consolidated studio, thus effectively stopping the development of Command & Conquer 3 for the time being.

In 2004, old concept art from Westwood was revealed, under the name "Command & Conquer 3". This artwork showed a mech unit, a fully 3-dimensional environment similar to that used in the game Generals, and the original interface system from both the original Command & Conquer and its sequel of Tiberian Sun. This revealed artwork fueled speculation that EA was working on a Command & Conquer game, which in turn set off rumors as to when the game would ship and what the plot would be; however, in December of 2004, after the EALA team settled down, then Executive Producer and Command & Conquer lead Mark Skaggs announced in a mass e-mail that the next Command & Conquer game would be Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 and not a long-awaited sequel to Tiberian Sun. However, shortly there after Skaggs left EA for reasons unknown^[6] and ideas for Red Alert 3 were mothballed^[7]. Mike Verdu later became the new lead on Command & Conquer.

On April 18, 2006, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was prematurely announced. On April 20, an official press release was made.

[edit] External links

• Official Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Website
• Official Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Forums
• IGN Interview with Mike Verdu

[edit] Fan Sites

• Planet CNC - GameSpy
• CNCDen
• GameReplays - Map, Replays and Forums
• CNCNZ.com Covering C&C 3: Tiberium Wars and past C&C games
• CNC Source HomePage
• CommandConquer3.com - News, Media, Info, Blog, Forums

[edit] Media

• Official EA Games Trailers & Podcasts
• Game previews (Windows Media File)
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Preview

[edit] References

1. ^ Tiberium Wars may be a working title, however Mike Verdu, executive producer of the development team working on C&C3, has stated that he considers the name to be good for the game which suggests it might be the game's final name.
2. ^ <http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061018/wr_nm/media_commandconquer_dc;_ylt=AlCZmb29Hxb4ew6yoF594XQjtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM->.
3. ^ <http://www.gamespot.com/news/6159992.html>.
4. ^ Verdu, Mike. EA executive producer. Leipzig Game Convention interview. <http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=133473>.
5. ^ Verdu, Mike. EA executive producer. Leipzig Game Convention interview. <http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=133473>.
6. ^ The exact reason Mark Skaggs left EA remains unknown; according to EA he had taken "an extended leave of absence".
7. ^ EA has not explicitly stated the Red Alert 3 has been cancelled; it is possible that an RA3 may be produced at some point in the future, but is still uncertain.