GamesRadar: Why return to the classic "Tiberium universe" of GDI and Nod now?
MV: A lot of us are very passionate about the Tiberium universe because the original C&C is what got us into RTS gaming. That universe has a timeless quality that really makes it good science fiction. We just knew we had to go back.
GamesRadar: Has the long wait paid off? What were you able to do now that you couldn't have a decade ago?
MV: Take advantage of the current generation of video cards to bring the world gloriously to life. The pyrotechnics are amazing and we're pushing literally ten times the number of particles than we were in our previous game. The world just comes alive. Particles in the atmosphere give it depth, the fireworks are tremendous, there are weather effects. Smoke, haze, force fields, all this really cool stuff that we just couldn't have done years ago.
GamesRadar: What else is updated for this iteration?
JB: We wanted to keep it simple where possible. We didn't want people to be worried about their base too much so, to keep them on the field, we went with a new interface. Everyone said, "If you're doing C&C, you have to bring the sidebar back." We thought, "How can we do that but still give you everything you've come to expect after playing modern day RTS's?"
We went back and redesigned the sidebar interface to give you the flexibility of both. You have the ability to build whatever you want from the field just by looking at the sidebar and navigating the sub tabs. Or you can use the contextual tab to click on things in the world and see them there, just like you'd expect in Generals. You get the best of both worlds and I'm really happy with that.
MV: The addition of the third faction is also a really big deal. We’ve opened up the C&C universe.
GamesRadar: Tell us more about them. How do the new aliens fit into the fiction?
MV: The Scrin have been around for a long time. There was a hint in Tiberian Sun that aliens were out there - now they're here. They've actually been dormant in our solar system, out beyond the orbit of Neptune, waiting for something to happen. That something happens in the third Tiberium War, draws them to Earth and, in the course of the story, you will find that they're not interested in the human race. They're interested in the same thing that the two human factions are fighting over - Tiberium. They have their own very interesting and complicated relationship with Tiberium that you'll learn more about as you play the game.
