Supreme Commander 2 Preview [PC]

What better way to start a preview than to quote Chris Taylor, CEO of Gas Powered Games and designer of Supreme Commander 2?

“We're not happy to simply put a paint job on the game, for the sequel,” explained Taylor to a group of journos at a round-table preview during E3. “We took the game, and almost every aspect – we replaced the rendering engine, we have a new global illumination model, we have a new pathfinding system, we've redesigned all the units. We've got a new tech tree system that allows you to research and enhance units. And, of course, neural net AI, to cap it all off – because AI is very, very important.”

What we saw was certainly impressive. Oh, it's hard to comment on the AI and the pathfinding, but the rest I can vouch for. It looks gorgeous, and there are a host of impressive features that, while not necessarily new, have had tweaks and additions that makes them look new. Take the unit upgrades. As with, say, Company of Heroes, you get tech tree points through combat, but you can also spend resources to make your scientists do research, essentially “buying” the points. These go into various trees, with upgrades falling into the categories of “boost, upgrades, and unlocks.”

“You can research boosts, which take any capability the unit has and makes it better,” explained Taylor, proving the point by upgrading a Rockhead tank to have two gun barrels, then longer barrels, then three barrels – and then adding on anti-aircraft capabilities, which struck me as a rather useful idea considering the mauling they got from air units earlier in the demo. “This is a way of preventing units from becoming obsolete, because early-game units in SupCom weren't terribly useful in late game, but now, with your upgrades, you can continue to evolve those same units rather than have to abandon them in the late game.”

Following on from the boosts, “You have upgrades, where you can add that cannon, or add those torpedoes, or add those jump jets [to your Commander]. And you've got unlocks, like the AC-1000 Terror here,” Taylor grinned, pointing at a gigantic gunship on screen.

The AC-1000 is from a new class of unit titled the mini-experimentals. Supreme Commander 2 has, Taylor reckons, 25 of these units. “Minis are so that players can enjoy the outrageous over-the-top nature of these units earlier on in the game. 15-20 minutes, build a mini-experimental. Lot of fun.” And it shows, with a fight between a Fatboy II (a slightly stripped-down version of the first game's Fatboy, which functions as a “mobile, land-based battleship,” according to Taylor) and a Megalith – a giant, beetle-like Cybran. More interesting was a major experimental that made an all-too-brief appearance: the Cybran-zilla, a part-dinosaur, part-robot monstrosity. Another major experimental tantalised, too – the Unit Cannon, a factory/artillery piece that builds units and then fires them across the map.

But these are things that you know, or suspect. After all, Supreme Commander 2 is real-time strategy. It's tweaked real-time strategy, with lots of neat little ideas, but it's RTS. You build and upgrade units with a variety of capabilities, you take them to war, you get research points and upgrades, the map expands as you complete objectives, and you still have stupidly large experimental units to terrify your foes. And naturally, it looks absolutely stupendous, with a design ethos that seems to mirror Demigod, with the landscapes truly providing a setting that genuinely appears to enrich the experience rather than just being present.