Command & Conquer 4 Not Intended To Be A Full Game

Long time Command & Conquer developer Greg Black shared his insights on the series with German C&C fan site CNCSaga.  His frank comments on the series reveal some interesting, but not entirely surprising facts about the games in recent years.

“The important thing to know is that C&C4 was never meant to be a true Tiberium universe canonical game, but rather an experiment in online play. It originally started as out an Asian market online-only version of C&C 3,” Black said. “At some point the company executives decided it made the most business sense to add a single player campaign, call it C&C4, and put it in a box.”

So while I totally called it for real, it’s disappointing that EA decided to conclude the current series with such an ill-fitting concept. To make things even more galling, Black relays that the two games preceding C&C4 were wrought with issues as well.

“Unfortunately although we had a very talented team of passionate gamers, EA simply would not give us the time we felt we needed to make a truly great C&C game. In the case of C&C:3 our development cycle was something like 11 months,” Black said.

While rushed development times aren’t anything new in the development world, 11 months for a game like C&C is incredibly restrictive.

“I was not happy with how C&C3 or RA3 turned out, our games were always rushed, our engine technology aged and degraded over the years, our path finding was horrible, our online implementations were embarrassing, and ultimately our games did not, in my view, live up to the original C&C, or RA2, or Generals.”

Black also shares some interesting thoughts regarding game balance and development, so check the full interview if you’re a C&C nut.

[via CNCSaga]