Greetings commanders and/or conquerors!

It’s great to be back in the hot seat discussing the evolution of our next featured product – Command & Conquer 4 Tiberian Twilight.

For those of you that aren’t familiar, I’m your Battlecast Primetime Main Event commentator and periodically step in to do other BCPT sound bites. In my spare time, I’m also a designer here at EALA - one of the guys responsible for the entirety of your gameplay experience. I actually started out in QA here at EA before moving on to Kane’s Wrath, Red Alert 3 and Uprising, designing all of the multiplayer maps and joining the MP team responsible for balance and the overall meta-game in multiplayer. Currently, I’m working on gameplay design on CnC4, including map design, units/structures/other gameplay elements, and balance.

Me and Raj co-hosting The Main Event!

I’ve got to say, being able to see the game of CnC4 from a high-level perspective and having a pretty solid picture of the final state of the game, even at this stage, we’ve got some very exciting things on the way, and I can’t wait for you to get your hands on it.

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of the members of our community for all of their heartfelt feedback, whether on the forums, via PMs and email, or directly spoken to our developers at CommandCom. Every piece of feedback is read and processed by members of our design and community teams, and I personally keep a list of community concerns, suggestions, and thoughts. Your voices help us shape CnC4 into a more polished and fun experience every day, sometimes by driving us to pursue a specific goal, but most often reminding us that a certain feature is important to the players at large, and that we should put just that much extra time into it. The bottom line is that the CnC community has existed for over a decade and consists of some of the most amazing mod-makers, multiplayer players, and generally passionate members that I’ve seen in any games community I’ve worked in, and your voice matters.

Where some of the game design magic happens!

I can’t go into great detail at this point, but let me paint you a picture that will be filled in by information that we will release over time. The build players had access to at CommandCom was intended to be an early-level experience, with only two classes and a limited set of units available. Overall, the goal is to introduce players to more complex, more micro-intensive, and more lethal units over time, as a way to reward the player for playing. In other words, there is around 80% more gameplay to unlock from there, just on that faction, including some of the most interesting and unique unit interactions we’ve ever done before. The same can be said for the meta-game. A simple multiplayer domination mechanic was our starting point, as it turned out to be easy to understand and work well for 5v5 gameplay, to which we have been adding layer upon layer of additional meta-game gameplay, story, and complexity.

Suffice it to say, the game has come a long way since then, and we’re not done yet! For example, in the current version of the game, losing units and structures loses your team points, and losing your Crawler causes a large loss in points, making each unit matter in a very real way. This allows a player to play as a pure “hunter”, focusing on killing enemy units. Along with this, we’ve made a big push to make class-switching a fast, fluid and fun way to completely switch up your loadout and strategy without needing to re-purchase your tech level or many of your upgrades. You will find that, at any moment, you have access to a staggering array of strategic options. We have also added pre-placed team bases and outposts scattered throughout the map, providing a story wrapper for each map and additional targets of opportunity and major points of interest. In parallel, we’ve endeavored to create some of the most interesting tech structures we’ve ever implemented, making them another important layer of gameplay complexity.

Yes, that means the mutant hovel is back, and it’s awesome.

We’ve got a lot more to share in the coming weeks and months as each piece of gameplay will be revealed, ultimately resulting in a big picture that I think you will be very happy with. For starters, we’re firing up the Ask a Developer Q&A threads on the forums to answer all of your most pressing questions and provide insight into our process for implementing each decision we make. We will also be re-igniting the unit and faction profiles to provide deep, detailed information on some of our more iconic units and structures, and some incredibly cool new toys that you’ve never seen before. To top it all off, APOC & 2POC have a full array of contests, prizes, and special features planned!

It’s a great time to be a Command and Conquer fan.

JFeasel