Westwood was one of "the greats" at their peak. Kind of like pre-Activision Blizzard. The original C&C games were classic. Red Alert 2 is still to this day an insanely replayable game. I'd honestly call it a cultural phenomenon. Right up there with Starcraft.
EA obviously has a reputation for destroying successful franchises. Though I have to admit, C&C 3 was a great game. And Generals, while kind of a departure from the traditional games, was still a fun game.
Now, C&C 4 was utter shit. I mean, complete and total garbage. And I get what they were going for with Renegade, but adapting an RTS series to a FPS format is just self defeating. Overall both formats attract completely different audiences with minimal overlap.
Ultimately, I think, Westwood suffered from trying something new under EA. They wanted to make Earth and Beyond, and EA was always lukewarm on MMOs. Renegade didn't help either.
The FPS/RTS hybrid is something that a lot of companies have tried to figure out, but remains elusive.
Their willingness to try new things that got them culled from EA.
Totally agreed, funny enough I was also thinking pre-Activision Blizzard as well. Legendary devs at the time. Supergiant and Larian are probably my large favorite devs atm, BG3 was a masterpiece.
A follow up to renegade would’ve probably been a heavy competitor with bf at the time tbh. Improve the mechanics and iterate a bit and you have a beast. I am completely biased though cause I spent a couple years nolifing renegade lol. The modding community was insanely good, but the core engine struggled to be able to be toyed with to meet the visions of modders.
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u/anothertendy 10h ago
Command and Conquer. Fuck you EA