Command & Conquer: Tiberian series

The genesis of the Tiberian series as well as the C&C franchise in its entirety. The original Command & Conquer game is called Tiberian Dawn in several readme files and FAQs for Westwood Studios' subsequent C&C games.

Versions of Command & Conquer were released for the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and Nintendo 64 platforms, all of which contained the Covert Operations missions as well as a package of additional missions entitled Special Ops. The Nintendo 64 version of Command & Conquer featured the game's first use of 3D graphics instead of sprites. The game was one of the first to be released on two CDs (instead of one), allowing multiplayer games between two computers to be played with a single copy of the game.

Covert Operations is an add-on for Command & Conquer which features 15 new missions, new music tracks, and multiplayer maps. Unlike the original game, the missions of Covert Operations can be played at any time and in any order, and are not accompanied by mission briefing cut-scenes. It added two new units to the game, and the new missions are more difficult than those of the original. The add-on pack features the DOS version's soundtrack, which includes music that was absent from the Windows 95 (or Gold Edition) version. Covert Operations was originally needed to unlock secret missions, which were later enabled by a patch to the main game.

Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor is a multiplayer spinoff of the original Command & Conquer game. It features deathmatch-style play in which each player controls a unit of the original Command & Conquer game and travels around the game arena collecting crates to increase the unit's firepower, armor, speed, attack range, and reloading speed. Sole Survivor was compared to a first-person shooter, played with a top-down perspective of the arena. It has a limited single-player skirmish mode; the multiplayer mode has no hints of a storyline, and was omitted from inclusion in the Command & Conquer: The First Decade compilation pack.

Next Generation reviewed the game, rating it one star out of five, and stated that "Don't be fooled by the unlimited free play that comes with the retail version. Odds are that even at its low price, you won't get your money's worth before tiring of the game and picking up Red Alert again. The best part of the package is the free inclusion of the new Westwood chat - and that's truly sad."[5]

Released in 1999 by Westwood Studios, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun is the sequel to the original Command & Conquer. Tiberian Sun is built on a 2D engine with fixed isometric perspective terrain tiles that allows variation in terrain height, dynamic lighting which allows real-time day-and-night cycles, as well as special effects such as ion and meteor storms. Tiberian Sun features maps consisting of cityscapes, providing players with the option to conceal their forces and do battle in urban environments. Structures and armored units are rendered with voxel technology, although infantry units are rendered as sprites. Map terrain in Tiberian Sun is deformable and interactive; bombarding the soil with explosive weapons results in the formation of craters of varying depths, bridges in urban areas can be destroyed and re-built, and certain tiberium fields can (intentionally or accidentally) be detonated, all of which have strategic impacts on gameplay.

Prior to its release, Tiberian Sun was speculated to be a BattleMech-type game: a promotional preview of the game in the ending cut-scenes of the original Command & Conquer shows an experimental battle-walker prototype being field tested by the Global Defense Initiative. However, Tiberian Sun continued the real-time strategy formula, but four futuristic mech-walker units were introduced to GDI's side (the Wolverine, the Titan, the "Juggernaut", and the Mammoth Mk. II), replacing the more conventional humvees and tanks which the faction used in the original Command & Conquer.

The full motion videos were scripted differently from those in other games of the series. In Command & Conquer and Command & Conquer: Red Alert, video sequences were filmed from first-person perspective. Tiberian Sun used traditional cinematic shots which featured Hollywood actors such as James Earl Jones and Michael Biehn.

The soundtrack of Tiberian Sun was composed by Frank Klepacki, who wrote the music for other C&C titles. The score departed from the industrial–hip-hop styles of its prequel in favor of slow, moody, and ambient music, reflecting the game's apocalyptic background setting of a world ecologically ravaged by tiberium, and a humanity facing an increasingly uncertain future. A CD of the game's soundtrack was released as well, initially only available packaged with the Platinum Edition version of the game.[6] In 2005, the soundtrack was released digitally.[7]

The storyline of Tiberian Sun' follows the continuing struggle for world domination between the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod, as well as the human race's struggle with the relentlessly advancing alien tiberium substance. Nod's leader and GDI's public enemy number one, Kane, presumed dead after the conflict 40 years prior, resurfaces and sets off the Second Tiberium War between GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod. The game's theme subtly revolves around the extraterrestrial origin of tiberium, with the discovery of what appears to be an alien spacecraft and a mysterious object known as the Tacitus.

Tiberian Sun was released to mixed reviews. Delays caused the game to take a total of four and a half years to develop, and as a result it suffered from outdated features. Many found the game performance to be sluggish on all but the latest computers of the time. Some of Tiberian Sun's advertised features, such as intelligent and adaptive skirmish AI, unit veterancy, and real-time lighting were severely scaled back as the result of time constraints. Westwood Studios later eliminated many of the performance and stability problems of Tiberian Sun, and reused its 2D engine for the production of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2.

Firestorm is the expansion pack for Tiberian Sun. It introduces new missions for each faction and follows the conclusion of Tiberian Sun's GDI campaign. Firestorm features new units and structures for both factions, and tells a story in which GDI and Nod are compelled to reluctantly join forces in order to overcome Nod's renegade artificial intelligence, CABAL. Prior to the release of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars in 2007, Firestorm's storyline was unique in the Command & Conquer series as it was the first to feature ending sequences for the GDI and Nod factions which took place simultaneously, both of which were considered as official canon storyline. By contrast, only the events of GDI campaigns were considered canon story in other Command & Conquer games, with the events of the Brotherhood of Nod campaigns having been treated as alternate "what if" realities.

Command & Conquer: Renegade is a first-person shooter (FPS) in which the player takes the role of a Nick "Havoc" Parker, a GDI commando in the war against Nod. The game is set in the final few weeks of the Command & Conquer storyline.

The game engine supports real-world physics and allows seamless movement from indoor to outdoor environments. The game allows the player to interact with structures and units from the original Command & Conquer game. The player can enter and destroy enemy structures with C4 explosives, and drive mammoth tanks, MRLSs, and other classic vehicles.

The multiplayer mode extends these concepts, giving Renegade the mechanics of a real-time strategy (RTS) game. For instance, a player is given a budget to purchase and drive vehicles. Two players can operate a single vehicle as a driver and gunner team. Massive environments allow for large armored battles as well as subterfuge. A player can target and launch the Ion Cannon or Nuclear Warhead super-weapons. Destroying specific enemy buildings can, depending on their purpose, cripple electrical power, tiberium gathering, base defenses, or unit production capabilities. The ultimate objective is to eradicate the opponent's base.

Command & Conquer: Renegade 2 is a cancelled first-person shooter using an updated version of the "Westwood 3D" engine. Renegade 2 had two build versions: the first was drafted as a connection to Command & Conquer from Red Alert 2; however, that was scrapped in favor of an FPS based on Red Alert 2 that took place after Yuri's Revenge. The storyline involved a rogue (Romanov) Soviet commander who attacked the US to avenge the honor of Premier Romanov. Most units were based on those of Red Alert 2; however, the Allied Light Tank and Soviet Hind Gunship made a return.

Command & Conquer: Continuum was to be Westwood's second MMORPG, developed on the "Westwood 3D" engine, and set in the Tiberian Universe. It was canceled due to the termination of Westwood Studios in 2003. As stated by Adam "Ishmael" Isgreen and Rade Stojsavljevic, it would have been a non-stand-and-swing MMORPG, featuring:

• Instanced "crisis zones", hubbed flight routes, and scripted boss battles
• GDI, Nod, Mutants, CABAL, and Scrin
• Los Angeles half underwater, Area 51, Dino island, Newark airport, and a mutant city
• Fluid and movement-oriented combat, unlike most MMORPGs; range was important for weapons use, and there were layers of counters for the weapon types.
• Creatures that had many console-game-boss sensibilities, in that you could expose weaknesses and hit them for extra damage
• A moving and evolving Tiberian world, where players could play a role in the entire story

Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars is the third game in the Tiberian storyline. After several years of rumors that Westwood Studios was working on a new Tiberian game—fueled by leaked concept art posted on the Internet by former Westwood artists, interviews with Louis Castle, and posters of C&C3 concept art in The First Decade game collection—Electronic Arts announced on 18 April 2006 that a third game in the C&C series was in development.

Before the announcement, fans referred to the game as Tiberian Twilight, as it had been discovered that www.tiberiantwilight.com had been registered by Westwood. The first gameplay footage of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars premiered on the SpikeTV show Game Head on 19 August 2006 at midnight.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was launched on 28 March 2007 and was met with critical acclaim.

Four months after the release of Tiberium Wars, an expansion pack was announced under the title Kane's Wrath, which was released on 26 March 2008 for the PC and 24 June 2008 for Xbox 360. In the campaign, the player takes on the role of LEGION, an advanced Nod military artificial intelligence created from the remains of CABAL, Nod's previous AI who went rogue during the events of Tiberian Sun: Firestorm.

The game features Risk-type gameplay in which players move their armies around the world. The actual battles are fought in traditional Command & Conquer style. The campaign spans two decades and tells the behind-the-scenes story of Nod from the end of the Firestorm Crisis to five years after the Third Tiberium War.

Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight is the fourth and final game in the Tiberian series involving Kane. It features a co-operative campaign, the first such campaign in the Tiberium series and the second in the Command & Conquer series, as well as new units, a class-based system, and an experience system which allows the purchase of new units and powers based on experience points. The gameplay of Tiberian Twilight differs from previous C&C games: traditional elements such as harvesting resources are eliminated, as is the sidebar, which is replaced with a "bottom bar" as in Command & Conquer: Generals. The base building element plays a minor role in Tiberian Twilight: it is replaced by a new unit called the Crawler which acts as a mobile base for all classes except the Defense class, the only class able to build actual structures. An explicit population cap is included which was not used in previous C&C games with the exception of the Xbox 360 versions of Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath, and the N64 version of Command & Conquer (in which it was hidden).

Command & Conquer 4 was formally announced on 9 July 2009. The first trailer for Command & Conquer 4 premiered on the GameTrailers website on 24 July 2009. The subtitle Tiberian Twilight was officially announced at CommandCom, a Command & Conquer event at Gamescom, on 21 August 2009 after a "Name the Game" contest in which fans submitted their suggestions for the subtitle of Command & Conquer 4. The game was released in North America on 16 March and in Europe on 19 March 2010.[8]

The series' storyline follows an escalating war between the worldwide Brotherhood of Nod society, led by a self-appointed and charismatic leader known only as Kane, and the Global Defense Initiative, a task force founded and funded by the United Nations. In Command & Conquer, which depicts the First Tiberium War, the two main factions were described as follows by the EVA:

"Sanctioned by the United Nations, the Global Defense Initiative has one goal: to eliminate multi-national terrorism in an effort to preserve freedom."

"The Brotherhood of Nod, an ancient and secret society, maintains strong ties with most global terrorist organizations. Commanded by this man, known only as Kane, Nod's long-term goals are unknown. However, recent activities include: expansionary behaviour into disenfranchised nations, high-volume investment in global trade markets, and aggressive manipulation of international mass-media."

The EVA goes on to explain the nature of the tiberium substance around which much of the game's storyline indirectly revolves:

"These efforts are suspected to be funded by Nod's access to vast tiberium deposits. Tiberium continues to confound the scientific community, soaking up ground minerals and soil nutrients like a sponge. The end result of this unique leeching process is the creation of the formation of tiberium crystals, rich in minerals and available for collection at the minimum of mining expense."

In a later briefing, the EVA provides more background information and new discoveries concerning tiberium:

"Tiberium is named after the river Tiber in Italy where it was first discovered. There are now more than 200 areas of the Earth affected by tiberium deposits. Tiberium appears to be spreading by means of conveyance unknown. We now know that not only does tiberium leech elements from the soil, but it appears to also leech vital nutrients from all plantlife. Human contact with tiberium is extremely toxic and often fatal. Exposure should be avoided."

In a fictional televised interview, the eccentric tiberium expert Doctor Ignatio Mobius explains tiberium with technobabble:

"Molecularly, tiberium is a non-carbon-based element, that appears to have strong ferrous qualities, with non-resonating reversible energy! Which has a tendency to disrupt carbon-based molecular structures, with inconsequent and unequal positrons orbiting on the first, second and ninth quadrings! The possibilities of tiberium... are limitless!"

The properties and workings of tiberium were wholly redefined in Tiberium Wars. In a later cut-scene in Command & Conquer, after learning of tiberium's deadly toll on ecology and humanity:

"Tiberium is a new life form. Quite simply put, it seems to be adapting to Earth's terrain, foliage and environment to suit its own alien nature. If this is the case, ladies and gentlemen, we are facing a killer beyond that of our most turbulent nightmares. It is not an exaggeration to state that the future of the entire planet may be in jeopardy. May God have mercy on our souls."

Tiberium is never fully explained in the series, and is constantly shrouded in mystery which deepens as the storyline progresses through successive Command & Conquer games.

In the campaign of the Global Defense Initiative, the First Tiberium War comes to an end when Kane's temple in Sarajevo is destroyed by a final GDI assault. The Nod campaign results in a Nod victory in Africa over GDI; however, the series assumes a GDI victory when the storyline is revisited in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, which depicts the Second Tiberium War. The expansion pack Covert Operations has various missions that show concurrent campaigns. At the end of the conflict, GDI wins the war in Europe by capturing and destroying the Temple of Nod with the aid of the Ion Cannon. To prevent the loss of Nod-controlled Africa, the player must take a Nod strike team and destroy an advanced communications center located somewhere on the continent in order to ensure that GDI does not regain dominance. Other missions like "Infiltration" suggest an ongoing attempt by GDI to take Nod-controlled Africa, as the briefing introduces Eastern Sudan as the location of the mission.

In the fictional C&C chronology, The Second Tiberium War begins on 2 September 2030[9] when Kane, who was presumed dead after Nod's defeat in Command & Conquer almost 35 years earlier, reappears in a live broadcast to General James Solomon (the GDI player character from the original game, portrayed by James Earl Jones), aboard the GDSS Philadelphia space station.

Meanwhile, tiberium has been ravaging the world for 35 years and has evolved into several varieties. It has mutated flora and fauna and forced humans to move to the polar regions, where the spread of tiberium is slowed by the cold, arid conditions. Many regions on the planet have begun a desertification process, and natural resources other than tiberium are becoming scarce. As a result of the spread of tiberium, the world's population is decreasing at an alarming rate. Many governments, as well as the United Nations, have dissolved. Those countries relatively untouched by the Brotherhood of Nod and tiberium begin to merge with the Global Defense Initiative. These countries are nominally sovereign states, but in practice GDI has become a military and political super-state.

Beyond the problem of fighting the spread of tiberium, GDI must deal with the reappearance of Kane who, along with a core group of loyalists, reunites the fractured Brotherhood of Nod, which has been splintered since the end of the First Tiberium War. The reunification of the Brotherhood precipitates a revolution across the globe, offering new hope to those worst afflicted by tiberium—not by eradicating the substance (which would prove lethal to mutants among the new generation who are dependent on it), but by adapting to and assimilating the emerging tiberium ecosystem. A second fight for world domination ensues during which important events transpire, including the discovery of an alien spacecraft (which was secretly built by Nod under the command of Kane), the rise of the Forgotten mutants, the creation of more deadly and powerful weapons like tiberium bio-warheads, and the discovery of a mysterious object called the Tacitus. The conflict becomes worldwide, and the player is taken to battlefields in various regions of the globe, including Norway, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Mexico, and the United States. The Second Tiberium war ends with a battle in Cairo wherein Kane attempts to launch a MIRV-ICBM into the upper atmosphere to spread tiberium throughout the atmosphere. However, GDI defeats Nod and Kane is supposedly killed by Commander McNeil.

Firestorm begins shortly after the end of the last game. Kodiak, Commander McNeil's command vessel, crashes during an ion storm after leaving Cairo with the Tacitus on board killing all of its crew (excluding Commander McNeil). The loss of the Kodiak, which acts as a primary communication relay, and an increase in ion storm activity cut off all contact with the Philadelphia space station. One of the few ground-based GDI generals activates the Firestorm Protocol, taking command of GDI until communication with the Philadelphia is re-established. Following Nod's defeat, GDI fights the remaining leaderless Nod forces. In desperation, Nod reactivates its artificially intelligent computer system CABAL, only for it to form its own renegade cyborg army. GDI and Nod form an uneasy alliance in order to destroy CABAL. However, it is unclear if CABAL was ultimately destroyed. The Firestorm story was the first in the Command & Conquer universe to follow a unified storyline, as opposed to providing two different endings.

The story of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars begins in 2047, roughly 16 years after the events of Firestorm. While the conflict between GDI and Nod appears to have subsided, tiberium infestation has reached critical levels and continues to destroy the Earth's ecosystems at an alarming rate, prompting GDI to divide the world into three different geographical zones based on the level of local infestation. Thirty percent of the Earth's surface are "red zones", which have suffered the worst contamination and can no longer support human or carbon-based life. Fifty percent of the Earth comprises "yellow zones", which are dangerously contaminated yet contain most of the world's population. Decades of war and civil unrest have left these regions in a state of social collapse which has provided the Brotherhood of Nod with opportunities for concealment and large-scale recruitment. The remaining twenty percent of the Earth's surface are "blue zones", which are relatively untouched by war or tiberium. "Blue zones" are considered the last refuge and hope of human civilization and are protected by GDI.

In March 2047, the Brotherhood of Nod suddenly attacks the Goddard Space Institute, disabling GDI's A-SAT missile defense system and permitting Nod to destroy GDI's orbital command station Philadelphia with a nuclear missile. Revealing that it has silently built up its influence and military potential to the level of a superpower, Nod launches many surprise attacks on GDI forces and blue zones. Eventually the remainder of GDI's Earth-based top military and political officials take charge and rally their standing forces. GDI forces eventually push back and attack Nod's rebuilt Temple Prime in Sarajevo. After confiscating components of a liquid tiberium bomb and learning that Kane is in the temple, GDI Director Redmond Boyle orders the ion cannon to fire on the temple despite warnings from his military advisers. The ion cannon destroys the temple and a deposit of liquid tiberium hidden beneath it. This causes a massive explosion and a cataclysmic chain reaction, spreading tiberium and wreaking havoc in the red and yellow zones. As the conflict ensues, the tiberium-based aliens known as the Scrin suddenly enter the war. At this, Kane secretly reveals that he anticipated and orchestrated the events to unfold; he tricked GDI into detonating the liquid tiberium with the ion cannon to attract the scrin to earth. The Scrin build enormous towers in the red zones, but GDI destroys most of them and drives the Scrin back into space. However Nod saves the last tower in Italy and takes control of it, rendering it invulnerable.

Unlike most previous installments of Command and Conquer, the factions' storylines are intertwined in a fashion similar to Firestorm. In one faction's campaign, references are made to events and missions that occur in the campaigns of the other factions. For example, after the completion of the Nod "Temple Prime" mission, the FMV shows the destruction of Temple Prime by GDI's Ion Cannon, which is a playable mission in the GDI campaign. Unlike Firestorm, the two campaign endings are different.

The story of Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight begins in 2062, 15 years after the events of Tiberium Wars and 10 years after the events of Kane's Wrath. By this time, tiberium has advanced to the next evolutionary stage and is rapidly spreading across Earth, which is expected to become uninhabitable by 2068.[10] Kane, leader of the Brotherhood of Nod, goes to the headquarters of the Global Defense Initiative in hopes of forming a "tiberium control network" which would control spread of tiberium and turn it into an inexpensive power source. The campaign starts 15 years after the formation of the network. It is precipitated by the unrest of extremists in both factions, which sparks the Fourth Tiberium War and ends the alliance. Tiberian Twilight is set to conclude the Tiberium saga.[11]

Kane (standing) advises Joseph Stalin (center), with Nadia (left) and Gradenko (right)

Westwood Studios designed Command & Conquer: Red Alert to be the prequel to Command & Conquer,[1][2][3][4] and by proxy of the Tiberian series as a whole.

During the course of the Soviet campaign, Kane makes infrequent appearances as a mysterious counselor to Joseph Stalin, and the story implies that he instigated the world war between the USSR and the Allied nations in order to further the long-term goals of the Brotherhood of Nod.[12] In a cut-scene after the campaign's successful conclusion, Nadia, the head of the NKVD, Stalin's mistress, and (evidently) a secret member of the Brotherhood, instructs the player to "keep the peace" until Nod "tire[s] of the USSR in the early 1990s".[13] Kane, however, shoots her without warning and says to the player that he "[is] the future".[14] During the fifth cut-scene of the Allied campaign, a news announcer who is reporting on the Allies' loss of Greece suddenly states that the UN is in the process of bringing about a unique military task force to prevent future globalized conflicts.[15] This task force is implied to be Special Operations Group Echo: Black Ops 9—the covert international unit of the United Nations and the precursor to the Global Defense Initiative[16]

According to former C&C designer Adam Isgreen, Command & Conquer follows on the conclusion of Red Alert's Allied campaign,[17] while Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge take place in a parallel universe created by an attempt to alter history in Tiberian Incursion,[18] the working title of Westwood Studios' canceled version of Command & Conquer 3.[19] Isgreen implied that the character of Nikola Tesla may have been inadvertently responsible for attracting the attention of the Scrin through his experiments, and thus for the arrival of tiberium on Earth.[20]

When the Command & Conquer: The First Decade compilation pack was released in February 2006, Electronic Arts adopted the policy of considering the C&C franchise to consist of three distinct universes. This decision apparently violated the storyline connections between Red Alert and Command & Conquer established by Westwood Studios. With the release of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars in March 2007 however, Electronic Arts published a document wherein an explicit reference to Kane's appearance in Command & Conquer: Red Alert is made, revealing that GDI's InOps intelligence division possesses photos of Kane which were taken by the CIA during the 1950s era of Red Alert.[4]