command-and-conquer posts

While we wait for Electronic Arts to tell us how they plan to revamp the Command and Conquer RTS game franchise, the last game in the series, 2010's Command and Conquer 4, now has a free single player map to get via automatic download.

The map, Night Moves, was previously available only to folks who pre-ordered the game before it was released but the map is now available for everyone who buys the game. The map can be found via the automatic updater if you registered your game copy by March 2011. If you registered your copy after that you will need to post that info on this message board thread. EA will then be able to free up the map manually.

[Via Blue's News]

It may have been prematurely launched earlier this week but now Electronic Arts has relaunched the Command and Conquer web site, officially revealing that the newly formed Victory Games studio will be in charge of the next game in the RTS game series.

Right now the site is pretty bare bones with an introduction to the game's new community manager and a chat with Victory Games' head Jon Van Caneghem. He talks in vague terms about their plans for the next C&C game, saying, "We've put together a team made up of some of the best talent from previous Command & Conquer games along with a great mix of quality industry veterans. He also stated that the full reveal of the game will be made later in 2011.

The Command and Conquer RTS franchise's last game was released back in March 2010 with the release of Command and Conquer 4. However even before that game shipped out from Electronic Arts the publisher had already announced plans in November 2009 for a revival of the series under the leadership of Might and Magic's creator Jon Van Caneghem. The EA memo announcing the move stated that the new game would use, "a new digital model that is going to re-ignite the fan base for this franchise."

Now the Command and Conquer web site has gotten a makeover, announcing that the new C&C game will be developed under EA's newly revealed Victory Games label with offices in Los Angeles, Austin and Shanghai. There's a brief chat with Van Caneghem on the site where he confirms that a new C&C game for the PC is in the works but details will be revealed later in the year. He adds that the work that he and Victory Games are doing will be more than just making an new game, saying. "That means updating a lot of the core technology to create a stable base for future development, and leveraging that work on this first game." Some have already speculated that means the new C&C game could be a digital download-only product.

Update: Looks like the web site might not have been ready for prime time: it has disappeared.

[Via Rock Paper Shotgun]

The Command and Conquer franchise is in a bit of a limbo state following the poor sales of the RTS game Command and Conquer 4 that was released in 2010. Now a newly discovered CGI trailer shows the premise for a canceled game in the series that seems to take the game in a new multiplayer direction.

The game was called Command and Conquer Arena and based on the trailer (first seen on the web site of the CGI film company Richard Taylor Design) it seems to take some inspiration from the Battlefield series game than an RTS title. You can check out the trailer after the jump:

[Via C&C Saga and Blue's News]

On Monday Big Download posted up the first part of our two part look at upcoming games that are so secret you aren't supposed to know about them yet. These were the titles we are labeling as "Code Black" games (formerly as Black Ops games). These are the titles have have been mentioned only in passing or as a listing on an online job description but have yet to be formally announced to the public.

But there are still a ton of such games that we have yet to talk about, including some that have more recently come to light. What are these games and what do we really know about them? In the second part of our Code Black games feature we will once again try to open the doors and slide the windows out so we can see a little more about what these games are about.

The Steam PC game download site still has a few more days before its annual holiday sales event ends. In addition to all of the deals that have been active since the sale began on December 20 it has some one-day price cuts that are in effect from now until 1 pm Eastern time on Saturday.

Far Cry 2 Fortune's Edition - $4.99
Command and Conquer games - Save 75 percent off all games in series
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl/Call of Pripyat bundle - $4.99
Star Wars Dark Forces/Jedi Knight collection - $5 for all five games in series
Empire/Napoleon Total War Game of the Year Edition - $24.99 or $19.99 if you own Medieval Total War or Rome Total War
Dawn of Discovery Gold Edition - $14.99
Supreme Commander 2 - $3.74
Flight Control HD - $1.70
Theatre of War - Save 75 percent off all games in series
Team Fortress 2 - $5
The Hitman Collection - $5 for three-game bundle (Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman Blood Money)
Guardians of Graxia - $2.49

According to a recent interview at Gamasutra, the next game in the Command and Conquer RTS series will be made under the Visceral Games label of its publisher Electronic Arts. The article states that Visceral's general manager Nick Earl will be supervising the "action and strategy" game genres at EA under a new development structure in the EA Games section of the company. Other unnamed general managers will cover the MMO and the driving-first person shooter genre games for EA.

While Visceral Games is based in Redwood Shores, California the article states that this new structure will let the studio share resources with other EA game developer studios in Montreal, Shanghai, Melbourne, and Los Angeles where the Command and Conquer franchise has been based for the last several years. EA released Command and Conquer 4 earlier this year to poor critical and sales response and much of that game' development team either was laid off or departed the studio. Before C&C 4's release, EA announced in November 2009 that it had hired Might and Magic creator Jon Van Caneghem to lead a team to revamp the Command and Conquer franchise. In the new Gamasutra chat, Earl said only that the new C&C game is "pretty far out" although it's not clear if that means the game is still a long way from being released or, well, "far out, man."

If you have Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars but haven't played it for a while (or more likely uninstalled it off your hard drive) then it might be time to hit that executable file. A group of mod makers have spent years creating a third party expansion pack for the sci-fi RTS game from Electronic Arts and this week the expansion, The Forgotten, was released.

This is an expansion pack in the true C&C tradition with an all new faction, a new single player campaign with full motion video cut scenes, new multiplayer and skirmish maps, and lots more. Considering that EA is reportedly working on a revamp of the C&C franchise this old school mod team-created expansion might be worth a look for those folks who want some good old fashioned RTS action.

[Via Joystiq]

Wow. Summer is coming and going like a rocket this year. We are only a few days away from July's end and the start of August. However PC games will always be on sale during the weekend. Here are the latest examples:

• Impulse has a number of games on sale this weekend including Mirror's Edge for $9.99 and the Gratuitous Space Battles Complete bundle (the original game and all three expansions) for just $25.95.
• GamersGate has quite a few adventure games on sale this week including the first two seasons of Sam and Max for $11.98 each.
• EA's online store has put up a number of Command and Conquer games on sale this weekend for as much as 75 percent off.

Once again the Steam PC game download service continues their EA sales week with a one day sale, This time the price cuts come to the games in the Command and Conquer RTS franchise. This includes the newest game, Command and Conquer 4, which is on sale for $33.49, a 33 percent savings.

Other games in the series like Command and Conquer 3, C&C 3: Kane's Wrath and C&C Red Alert 3, are on sale for 50 percent off their normal price. C&C Red Alert 3 Uprising is on sale today for just $4.99, a 75 percent savings from its normal price.