Vessella On C&C 4 Page 3

12 Aug 2009 at 18:01:16 by Tim McDonald

Why have you chosen to only have the two factions? Much as you've got six different Crawlers, is there a reason you decided not to have the Scrin in there?

The reason we focused on the two factions is that we really wanted to double-down on that fiction between GDI and Nod. That's how the series started, and that's what the conflict has always been between those two factions, and via the story – I can't reveal too much in detail but it's really where the story felt like it should be right now in terms of having GDI versus Nod in that conflict.

The very cool thing we can do there is we can really play those two factions off each other. Nod has stuff like stealth and burrowing, and GDI doesn't get those advantages, so it's kind of a cool place. It's kind of like when you have Horde versus Alliance in WoW – we really hope that players rally behind factions: “I'm Nod,” “I'm GDI.” We've seen that in the past, when C&C3 was released.

Plot-wise then, have you been thinking of this plot all the way? Has the reveal we'll see here been Kane's master plan from the very first games, as far as you know, or have you not had access to the original thoughts?

Well our team didn't work on the very first games back in the 90s – we inherited the franchise with C&C3. Ever since then, we've had an idea of where we wanted Kane's arc to go in terms of what he wanted for his plan of ascension and what that meant, so we've been able to tease and slowly reveal some things about that plan throughout our games. If you play close attention to games like Kane's Wrath, he starts to reveal a bit about what he wants to do there. So there are certain things that we have tried to plan ahead for. With other things, we react to what the feedback is. Players want to hear more about the Forgotten, which was a side faction that was heavy in Tiberian Sun but we ignored a little bit in C&C3, so we're going to try and get some of those side stories back in there so that we can try to answer as much as possible.

So you'll be revisiting a lot of the elements that were in Tiberian Sun? The Forgotten, CABAL, and a lot of units that appeared in TibSun and then weren't seen again in C&C3, for instance.

We've taken elements from Tiberian Sun in a few of our games. The character LEGION in Kane's Wrath was very much CABAL 2.0, if you remember that story arc. We've taken some of the gameplay elements like burrowing and tried to bring that back into C&C4. So there are elements that we're trying to take from those previous games, and again, the Forgotten are something that we also want to explore. So yeah, we're trying to take as much legacy stuff and bring it to the forefront as much as possible.

Time for one last question, then: are you going to have any form of superweapons in the game?

Yes. The Ion Cannon will make a return, as will the Temple of Nod. Those are both structures that can be built by the Defence class -

Not the others?

No, not the others. Again, we're trying to make asymmetry in our classes, so as a Defence player that's kind of your reward for building up a base and defending your base over time. You can charge up that Ion Cannon and use that to your advantage. So yeah, in terms of superweapons, those are our superweapon structures classic to C&C. The other classes will have superweapons mainly in terms of units. Really powerful units, like the Mastodon. Really powerful units that are unmatched among their classes. So there are a few different ways you can define superweapon, but in terms of the classic Ion Cannon, that'll be exclusive to the Defence class.

Thank you very much!

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