Monday, July 13, 2009

More on Command and Conquer 4

New information has surfaced from an interview C&C4 designer and story writer Samuel Bass gave. Read it here.

A couple things I find interesting. The first big change is this idea of persistent profiles that exist throughout the game modes. From offline campaign to online multiplay, you gain experience as a commander, allowing you to unlock different units and abilities. Additionally, you have a class, either offensive, defensive, or support, giving you unique abilities in the field.

While I normally like to play the entire game I've paid for, this idea could be interesting. Sounds like they're taking a page out of the CoD 4 book. Bass does say that the game has more units that any C&C game ever, so it might not be so bad.

Second, the mobile base is a new gameplay twist, and should prove interesting in multiplayer matches. Because the resources you want often aren't mobile, but you can exhaust them, it's nice to be able to move around to more relevant areas.

But the best thing I read was this quote from Bass: "As a nice side effect, since C&C4 requires players to be online all the time in order to prevent cheating, we'll be shipping without any form of DRM." Cool! It only took them three years to catch up to Company of Heroes. But that's a good thing, if a little late.

Probably another year before we see C&C 4, no release date set yet, but it will be exclusive to the PC at least for a time.