EA's New Victory Games to Focus on Strategy, Command & Conquer

[Greg Tito]

EA's New Victory Games to Focus on Strategy, Command & Conquer

Victory Games is a new studio founded by Electronic Arts that will bring back the classic strategy franchise Command & Conquer.

A revamp of the Command & Conquer website went up last night before mysteriously disappearing revealed several details about Victory Games and its mission. The new studio has built bases in Los Angeles, Texas and Shanghai, China, and is committing all its Tiberium into forging a new AAA Command & Conquer game. The newly-appointed general manager of Victory Games is Jon Van Canegham, who previously worked on the Heroes of Might and Magic series at Ubisoft. Van Canegham was also the president, cofounder and chief creative officer of Trion Worlds, but he left in 2009 (or was fired according to some) long before all of the buzz about Rift.

"We're not just working on a game, though. Our general focus is on the future of Command & Conquer," Van Canegham said in an interview that was also pulled when the C&C website revamp went down. "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."

Electronic Arts hasn't really been focusing on PC strategy games of late. In 2009, the videogame conglomerate laid off large portions of the teams that brought us Command & Conquer 4 and Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth I and II. The last C&C game, Tiberium Twilight, was generally poorly received by critics so a reboot may be in order. We don't know anything about what the new game will entail, if it reprise Joe Kucan as Kane, or if it will even be in the same timeline.

All we do know was in the "About" section of the aforementioned pulled website: The new C&C will "combine classic RTS gameplay with bold new technology, innovative new concepts and, as always, tanks by the dozen."

Well, that could be any RTS really. Thanks for that stellar info.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-02-22-ea-founds-new-strategy-studio-victory-games]

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[sjrskl]

let's hope they don't repeat the disaster that was c&c 4

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Step 1: Forget about anything C&C3 and later (which was actually C&C6, but counting is for chumps)
Step 2: Go back to C&C's roots of base building, harvesters, counters, superweapons, large armies, and fuckmothering base building!
Step 3: ???
Step 4: PROFIT! And no fanboy rage!

Oh wait, scratch that. Step 3 should read: develop said, and don't listen to a) retarded managers, b) game "journalist" who insist on innovation where none is needed, c) the sad, mentally unsound fans Tiberium Wars and later might have produced. Oh yeah, hire Kucan as Kane, but that's a no brainer.

 

[Legion]

let's hope they don't repeat the disaster that was c&c 4

Step 1: Forget about anything C&C3 and later (which was actually C&C6, but counting is for chumps)
Step 2: Go back to C&C's roots of base building, harvesters, counters, superweapons, large armies, and fuckmothering base building!
Step 3: ???
Step 4: PROFIT! And no fanboy rage!

Oh wait, scratch that. Step 3 should read: develop said, and don't listen to a) retarded managers, b) game "journalist" who insist on innovation where none is needed, c) the sad, mentally unsound fans Tiberium Wars and later might have produced. Oh yeah, hire Kucan as Kane, but that's a no brainer.

This and this.

I loved all C+C games up until "3", and that just killed it for me as it was awful, I could not fathom what on earth they were thinking of when they made that game.

 

[sunburst]

I loved all C+C games up until "3", and that just killed it for me as it was awful, I could not fathom what on earth they were thinking of when they made that game.

They were thinking they could make an RTS work on both PC and Xbox 360. They were wrong of course since RTSs never work on consoles.

I used to really like the C&C games, even more than StarCraft and Brood War really, but I doubt this will pull me away from SC2. We shall see.

 

[Kiefer13]

Command & Conquer 4 was horrible. It took one of my favourite gaming series and turned it into something I just found unplayably bad. If they're making a new one, they need to go back to the roots of the series. Basically, something like Tiberian Sun or Red Alert 2 in feel and general gameplay style, with a modern engine and graphics.

 

[Jandau]

Step 1: Ignore Tiberian Twilight. Just pretend it never happened. If you need to acknowledge its existance, then acknowledge it as the steaming pile of feces that it was.

Step 2: Might as well not pay too much attention to Tiberium Wars, since while decent, it was a step back for the series.

Step 3: Check out Tiberian Sun, see how the best game in the Tiberian series worked and start from there.

Seriously, at least do Step 1, we beg you!

 

[mad825]

So...No Generals 2? C&C:generals was quite a decent RTS EA pulled out of their arse.

 

[RA92]

Am I the only one who thinks it was a bad business plan trying to appeal to the teenage girl demography by adding the 'Twilight' bit to an RTS title?

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Am I the only one who thinks it was a bad business plan trying to appeal to the teenage girl demography by adding the 'Twilight' bit to an RTS title?

That actually goes back to the Westwood days, when the game following Tiberian Sun was to be called Tiberian Eclipse, followed by Tiberian Twlight (or vice-versa). These titles precede the godawful vampire books by quite a few years.

 

[mjc0961]

Electronic Arts hasn't really been focusing on PC strategy games of late. In 2009, the videogame conglomerate laid off large portions of the teams that brought us Command & Conquer 4 and Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth I and II. The last C&C game, Tiberium Twilight, was generally poorly received by critics so a reboot may be in order. We don't know anything about what the new game will entail, if it reprise Joe Kucan as Kane, or if it will even be in the same timeline.

The only thing they need to reboot is C&C4 itself. The rest of the series was just fine.

Although, part of me would rather they just stop making games altogether after that mess. Maybe I'm way to cynical but I just don't want the series ruined any further.

 

[RA92]

Am I the only one who thinks it was a bad business plan trying to appeal to the teenage girl demography by adding the 'Twilight' bit to an RTS title?

That actually goes back to the Westwood days, when the game following Tiberian Sun was to be called Tiberian Eclipse, followed by Tiberian Twlight (or vice-versa). These titles precede the godawful vampire books by quite a few years.

I'm going to completely throw your rationale out of the window and troll some C&C fans with this piece of gold nugget - C&C not only had the name Twilight, but also had Eclipse planned as well! >

 

[Ganthrinor]

Ugh. More Command and Conquor? Please just make it stop. Red Alert was the only good one. Let the IP die and rest in peace.

 

[teqrevisited]

As long as they get Frank Klepacki in on it they should at least equate a RA3 standard of product.

I'd be content with just the Tiberium universe finally getting the sendoff it deserves.

 

[kajinking]

KANE LIVES!

Or at least I hope so. I really do hope they go back and make C&C5 to make up for the piss poor story of C&C4 (I actually liked the gameplay). C&C 3 was my first serious RTS and I don't want those memories of mass mammoth tanks and killing scrin to end with such a terrible sequel.

 

[Callate]

I think they started to go wrong around C&C 3. It was perfectly playable, but the focus on "Go go go go go" was completely antithetical to the game that my friends and I used to tie up the computer labs with in college. There was a reason that game had a speed slider.

I'll confess that I tend to be a "turtle" player, and I find it far more interesting to probe enemy defenses and come up with a successful strategy after a few failures than to see who can twitch out the most tanks and struggle with the user interface fastest ("Your units are under at- Oh... Never mind...") I would be happiest if EA would cast off the idea of C&C as some kind of tournament game where all games, regardless of size, should be completed in under an hour.

So, good luck to the new team... And I'm not holding my breath for the rebirth of Westwood and the games it created.

 

[Thedarkestofsouls]

I'm pretty certain Kane's story is over (that was the point of C&C 4, Closure). That doesn't mean they might not go back to some in-between times, or even have Joe take up another role.

One things for sure, Kane or no Kane, I know where my loyalties lie... FOR THE TECHNOLOGY OF PEACE!

 

[The3rdEye]

I'm hoping that he was being brief or at the very least playing to the media when he said

"We're not just working on a game, though [oh god...]. Our general focus is on the future of Command & Conquer," Van Canegham said in an interview that was also pulled when the C&C website revamp went down. "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."

There's nothing inherently wrong with C&C's tech, it's the writing and studio design that have been stomping the franchise into the dirt. Show us that you can pull off a game that makes us fondly remember the first time we fried infantry with an Obelisk, or hot-dropped engineers into an enemy base. Show us that you can achieve light tongue-in-cheek humor and innovative unit design. Show us that you can have story elements and/or FMV clips that actually add to the game's atmosphere, rather than something you might pull from Amateur Night at the Temple (As an aside, Einstein going back in time and killing Hitler was both ballsy and intriguing as a plot device, one of my favorites). If you can pull that off, THEN you can start talking about updating technology and "innovation".

 

[UnravThreads]

The newly-appointed general manager of Victory Games is Jon Van Canegham, who previously worked on the Heroes of Might and Magic series at Ubisoft.

Uh... No, he didn't. He created the Might & Magic games (Including the Heroes spin-off), which were published by 3DO, and his involvement with the franchise ceased as of 2003 - When it was acquired by UbiSoft.

Edit: Minor tweaks.