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The new gameplay mechanics in Command & Conquer 4 are a necessary gamble, according to producer Jim Vessella. Despite being the last entry in the Tiberium Wars franchise, the final game will ditch many of the series’ trademark elements – including base-building and resource collection.
When we saw the game for the first time last week, we asked Vessella if the new approach could be considered a risk. After all, this is the conclusion to a storyline that began in 1995. After 14 years, isn’t it a bit late to be changing the rules?
“Absolutely, it’s a big risk. Command & Conquer has been a very strong franchise for a long time now with that formula, and it’s worked well with us. So we [originally] stuck with that plan, and kind of made C&C 4 a standard C&C game in the same way that 3 was. And that probably would have worked out fine, but it wasn’t going to grow our audience, it wasn’t going to bring in new players and allow a new generation to come in.”
Many of the new features in Command & Conquer 4 are designed to make the game more accessible to less hardcore players. For example, in previous games a player would almost certainly lose if their command centre was destroyed by the enemy. Now users are afforded a limited number of re-spawns, depending on the difficulty level.
“I think we are taking a little bit of a risk, but it’s a really good risk,” said Vessella. “It’s what the genre needs, and I think that other companies like Relic and Massive have seen that as well. I hope it pays off, I really do. I hope that new players try the game, have fun with it and then try out some of the other RTS games out there.”
“There are still so many high quality games in the RTS genre. I just think it’s always been typecast as this hardcore genre where you need to have 250 APM [actions per minute] to get into.”
Command & Conquer 4 will be released on PC at some point next year.
