RTS Command & Conquer Remastered Collection from Petroglyph

[ferratilis]

Isn't it disappointing that there's still no word on RA2/Tiberian Sun remaster? Tiberian Dawn/RA1 remaster was great, and sold well, it should be a no brainer.

Have the sales figures been released? Been wondering how it went and if that was stopping them moving on to the next generation.

Not exactly, but one of the guys from Petroglyph described it as a success in a Eurogamer interview.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...s-a-success-so-whats-next-for-the-revived-rts

It looks from the outside that Command & Conquer Remastered Collection was a success. Has it met your expectations?

Jim Vessella: It's been fantastic, to be honest. The reception we received from fans was really meaningful to us. We've been hovering around a 9.0 user rating on Steam and on some of the sites. That's just fantastic to see. The Command & Conquer franchise has had a little bit of a turbulent decade, you could say. We had lost a lot of the trust of the community. There's definitely reasons for that. Our top priority in building the remastered collection was to do this for the fans, to rebuild that community sentiment, try and rebuild that trust. And it's fantastic to see the community come into it with an open mind, and give us that chance to earn that back, and to then see that reflected in the response has been really humbling. It is really meaningful to us on the development team.

On the critical reception side, I'll admit it has exceeded my expectations. We weren't really sure how the greater industry was going to react to the game. There have been quite a few of these RTS remasters over the past five, six, seven years, and there's been a wide spectrum of response. We've seen a couple of games of late not get a positive response. And obviously that makes everybody nervous. So I really didn't know what to expect going into it from a critical standpoint. But to see the ratings come in as high as they did - we've had over 20 90-plus reviews come in from different outlets around the world - that's just phenomenal. And some quotes saying, 'it's one of the best remasters of all time,' from some really reputable outlets. It's just fantastic. And so I think it has exceeded everybody's expectations for threading the needle between that kind of authenticity and staying true to the original experience, but also modernising and updating the right things in the game. It's been great to see that vision is landing well.

And then from a commercial standpoint, it's also been great to see. We had a really strong launch. We were in the top of the Steam sales charts for a few weeks. We got great support from our teams and from Valve going onto Steam for the first time. That has been a great collaboration, taking advantage of the native platform on Steam with the Steam Workshop and achievements. Watching people go for the achievements has been really fun.

So, all things coming together, it's really turned out to be a launch that has exceeded all of our expectations. And that's great for the franchise. It's great for the development teams at Petroglyph and Lemon Sky. It's great for EA. And we really hope that momentum can continue.

 

[Luka-boy]

One of the bonus videos unlocked when beating the expansion missions in the Remaster was a live recording of them finding the original tapes and cassettes with the videos and sounds/songs in a EA storage room.

In that video, you could see one of the drawers is also full of tapes with the recordings made for Red Alert 2 and there are a ton of other boxes and stuff where you can's see the labels but it's all Westwood, so should be one good first step for a remaster of the sequels.

EDIT: This one:

 

[passerby]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...s-a-success-so-whats-next-for-the-revived-rts

And then from a commercial standpoint, it's also been great to see. We had a really strong launch. We were in the top of the Steam sales charts for a few weeks. We got great support from our teams and from Valve going onto Steam for the first time. That has been a great collaboration, taking advantage of the native platform on Steam with the Steam Workshop and achievements. Watching people go for the achievements has been really fun.

So, all things coming together, it's really turned out to be a launch that has exceeded all of our expectations. And that's great for the franchise. It's great for the development teams at Petroglyph and Lemon Sky. It's great for EA. And we really hope that momentum can continue.

The statement about sales is vague enough to suggest it turned a profit, but wasn't exceptionally successful commercially and remasters of the sequels are unlikely to sell much bether.

If they had source files for 3d assets, they could just rerender in higher resolution and with more animation frames.
If assests are lost and they would have to remake everything from scratch the cost would be much more than 10x of the first remaster and may not be justified by projected sales.

 

[Blake00]

Interesting...

I don't know if anyone saw these too and remembers where as I've forgotten but they recent did a official Red Alert 2 20th anniversary celebration and posted videos on youtube (wasn't EAs channel it was somewhere else) where they got some of the actors back to talk about their memories (includes the lady who played Eva in RA2 who has a rather nice mint condition collectors boxset of the game still) and while I was watching these vids I thought to myself "if they're working on a remaster surely now is the time to annouce it.. surely something is coming.." but yeah.. it didn't. Doesn't fill me with confidence then since surely if they were working on something they would have used that opportunity when everyone was talking about RA2 again to do it.

 

[Hellraiser]

Remastered and not AI upscaled FMVs for Tiberian Sun would be the bomb.

Rendered in higher resolutions voxels would make me hard.

 

[vota DC]

Isn't it disappointing that there's still no word on RA2/Tiberian Sun remaster? Tiberian Dawn/RA1 remaster was great, and sold well, it should be a no brainer.

Red Alert 2 has already been massively overhauled and modded by the community, and losing access to CnCNet for what is essentially the same game but with better graphics is a hard sell, given how much better Red Alert 2 looks than its predecessor. Also Tiberian Sun is freeware, which the first C&C games also are, but it being free and RA2 being as good as it is makes it a tough sell for the full package. Unless of course they manage to drudge up the same amount of stuff they did for the first Remaster.

There's other games to remaster: going with Tiberium Wars and Red Alert 3 could help them get out of the 30FPS lock, and from what I understand they've got quite a competitive scene going on that might not want to switch. Red Alert 3's also got other issues with it being built to be a competitive game from the ground up, with the extensive microing and how gathering resources works. And Tiberium Twilight... well, if they turn that game into an actual C&C title instead of a salvaged mobile game it could actually work.

Red Alert 3 had a rigid ai that I wasn't able to change with the modding kit....if you changed any value AI didn't realize of the unit was cheaper or weaker. I remember that with Dark Reign I changed Freedom guard basic infantry unit giving very low stats like an angry mob and AI used them in huge Number compared to unmodded game.

Another game that they could remaster Is Emperor since It was early 3d.

Also no idea about how much unfinished stuff in old Westwood games Is that could be completed with a remaster. Games after EA takeover are full of It, for example C&C generals had a surrender and capture mechanic that was scrapped and we see soldiers die for a flashbang grenade.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Of all the possible westwood remasters I would really like Dune: Emperor. It was a fun game, but looks very dated now.

 

[Caim]

The issue with Emperor is the Dune part: they'd have to get their hands on the license and that'll likely be too expensive for just a remake.

Also no idea about how much unfinished stuff in old Westwood games Is that could be completed with a remaster. Games after EA takeover are full of It, for example C&C generals had a surrender and capture mechanic that was scrapped and we see soldiers die for a flashbang grenade.

According to the Wiki there's a bit, but note that in TibSun's case quite a few things were added into Firestorm:

https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Cut_content_(Red_Alert_2)
https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Cut_content_(Tiberian_Sun)

Red Alert 2 was also supposed to have the anti-armor turret from Red Alert 1 and a defensive structure/unit that's an upscaled Chrono Legionnaire, but both were cut (and were remade to be used in mods, but that's besides the point).

 

[Blake00]

Yeah I was hoping they'd squeeze in a Dune 2000 remaster before C&C2 and RA2 since it was made in the RA1 engine, but yeah... license...

 

[Storyfag]

Another game that they could remaster Is Emperor since It was early 3d.

The Herbert Estate hates EA* and those games that EA holds license to are in the freezer until... oh forever.


*SURPRISINGLY EA was in the right in the court spat. The Herbert Estate tried to block them from producing games using Westwood's old license, claiming EA never bought a license from them. But since EA bought Westwood, they also acquired that license.

 

[80s Stallone]

More confusing: I have heard at some point that EA only owned the rights to the Lynch movie.

 

[80s Stallone]

Yeah I was hoping they'd squeeze in a Dune 2000 remaster before C&C2 and RA2 since it was made in the RA1 engine, but yeah... license...

Somewhat surprising, it is not the same engine. The game was made by Intelligent Games (as was Emperor) and featured a self-made engine, but I guess they took some stuff from Westwood's copy-and-paste style. But data formats and so on are NOT compatible.

 

[Caim]

Dune 2000 even has support with the CnC Net engine, even though I'm not sure if you can even get that game through official channels anymore.

 

[Storyfag]

More confusing: I have heard at some point that EA only owned the rights to the Lynch movie.

Yeah, because they bought it from the De Laurentis corp which produced the Lynch movie. And they were permitted to only use the setting, but not the characters. That's the reason for mentat Haytt de Vries as opposed to Piter de Vries in D2K, as well as for Duke Achilles Atreides as opposed to Duke Leto in Emperor, etc.

 

[vota DC]

More confusing: I have heard at some point that EA only owned the rights to the Lynch movie.

Yeah, because they bought it from the De Laurentis corp which produced the Lynch movie. And they were permitted to only use the setting, but not the characters. That's the reason for mentat Haytt de Vries as opposed to Piter de Vries in D2K, as well as for Duke Achilles Atreides as opposed to Duke Leto in Emperor, etc.

Also the storyline Is different. Frederick Is a man with a big debt because his brother took the throne. Funny thing Is that Frederick resemble to Shaddam in the Lynch movie while Shaddam in Dune 1 game doesn't. In Ordos Emperor ending they crown the ghola Emperor saying that he Is Shaddam because a script error.

 

[Blake00]

Yeah I was hoping they'd squeeze in a Dune 2000 remaster before C&C2 and RA2 since it was made in the RA1 engine, but yeah... license...

Somewhat surprising, it is not the same engine. The game was made by Intelligent Games (as was Emperor) and featured a self-made engine, but I guess they took some stuff from Westwood's copy-and-paste style. But data formats and so on are NOT compatible.

ahh okay.. I remember 20 years ago everyone was saying it was a modified version of the RA1 engine but I guess looks can be deceiving... Weird that Intelligent Games didn't just take the RA1 engine and modify it for their own purposes as starting from scratch to make something that ends up so similar seems like more work.

 

[Jenkem]

grabbed this on sale and have been playing the first game.. I've never played C&C before, never been much of an RTS fan except for Homeworld and Pikmin. I love FMV though and this game is simple enough that I'm enjoying it. Having never played the game before I can see why it was so revered. The gameplay is simplistic (which is a plus for me) but fun, the FMV is great and the soundtrack is fucking AMAZING. I have the game paused and in the background right now just to listen to the music. I also like how the new graphics still have that old school look, just a little more detailed and easier to see (not that the original is that hard, I like to flip between the two) but I like that that they didn't go all insane MUH GRAFIX with it, and I wish more remastered games w/ graphic updates would follow a similar trend.

also the amount of content is incredible with the expansions and even the console maps, the behind the scenes stuff, new music etc. fun game.

 

[axx]

Apparently it also has the ant & dinosaur missions, cool enough that they didn't forget about those expansions so I bought it. Last played c&c when it came out.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Command & Conquer is nice, but Red Alert is when things get really good.

 

[kangaxx]

Those ant missions were great. I remember them being quite challenging when I was a kid... the defence missions and "bunker missions" with limited troops were always my weak point.

 

[Storyfag]

Command & Conquer is nice, but Red Alert is when things get really good.

There is little difference between the two, tbh.

 

[Jenkem]

where are the ant/dinosaur missions?

 

[kangaxx]

where are the ant/dinosaur missions?

If it's still the same, fire up Counterstrike and left shift click the speaker icon in one of the corners. That used to load up the ants.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Command & Conquer is nice, but Red Alert is when things get really good.

There is little difference between the two, tbh.

Fake news. The differences between GDI and NOD in TibDawn are much greater than the allies and soviets in RA1, which leads to significantly different playstyles for both. Also the campaign in TD is generally much harder than RA1 and has a lot of specific quirks, like the endless GDI bombing runs.

TD and RA1 may look the same but in practice play much differently.

 

[Hellraiser]

Four reasons why TD>RA1:

Kane
Tiberium
Ion Cannon
Kane