Command & Conquer

Command & Conquer

Command & Conquer (abbreviated as C&C or CnC) is a video game franchise featuring real-time strategy games, first developed by Westwood Studios and considered a staple of the RTS genre. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself based on Westwood Studios' landmark strategy game Dune 2 and introducing trademarks followed in the rest of the series. This includes full motion video cutscenes with actors to progress the story, as opposed to digitally in-game rendered cutscenes, notably with well known ensemble casts. Westwood Studios was taken over by Electronic Arts in 1998 and eventually closed down in 2003. The studio and some of its members were absorbed into EA Los Angeles, which continued development on the series.

The first installment, Command & Conquer, was released worldwide by Westwood on August 31, 1995 and featured the Earth becoming infected by a mysterious resource known only as Tiberium. A global war ensues between the UN formed Global Defense Initiative to contain it and the cult quasi-state revolutionary Brotherhood of Nod, led by the enigmatic Kane, which seeks to harness it. Highly successful, the game originally came with two CDs containing a campaign for each of the two respective factions while introducing multiplayer. Command & Conquer: Red Alert was released in 1996 and set in a alternate universe where the Soviet Union wages war with the Allied West. Developed as the prequel to the original, the Red Alert series was spun-off into a separate, lighthearted and comic series, while the original game and its sequels became known as the "Tiberium" series, retaining its sci-fi and serious tone. The first game is sometimes referred to as Tiberian Dawn as a result.

The original game was followed by Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun in 1999 and its expansion pack. In 2002, a first person-shooter set in the Tiberium universe, Command & Conquer: Renegade, was released and praised for its online features. The highly anticipated Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was released in 2007 and followed by the expansion pack Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath. Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, released in 2010 as the conclusion to the Tiberium saga, received noticeably more mixed reviews because of its deviation from traditional gameplay. The Red Alert series was continued by the 2000 title Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, its expansion, Yuri's Revenge and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 in 2008, which introduced a third "Empire of the Rising Sun" faction. A spin-off game in 2003, Command & Conquer: Generals, set in a more realistic near-future and featuring the United States, China And Global Liberation Army was followed by an expansion pack, Zero Hour.

The series was originally marketed to an Anglophone audience, though many of the games have been translated into other languages including Russian, Korean, and Chinese. The series is primarily developed for personal computers running Microsoft Windows, although some titles have been ported to various video game consoles and the Apple Macintosh. Other games for platforms such as iOS and web-based have also been developed. As of July 2010, the Command & Conquer franchise consists of eleven games and eight expansion packs. EA has confirmed that a new free-to-play game, entitled Command & Conquer, is in development with the studio BioWare Victory. It is set to be the next game in the series and is expected to launch in 2013. The Command & Conquer series has been a commercial success with over 30 million Command & Conquer games sold as of 2009.