The Command & Conquer strategy franchise spans three decades and more than two dozen officially released games and expansions. However, with that many successes, there is bound to be a few failures along the way, and more than a couple Command & Conquer games eneded up cancelled or unreleased.
Starting with 1995’s Command & Conquer, which was developed by Westwood studios, the franchise defined the real-time strategy genre. As the series went on, Westwood also released their initial attempt at a first-person shooter game, the sixth installment in the series called Command & Conquer: Renegade.
The franchise planned to release Renegade 2, which was based on C&C’s fifth title, Red Alert 2. The game was supposed to build on the “Westwood 3D” engine from Renegade, despite negative reviews from critics about the original Renegade. The game was axed due to the popularity Battlefield 1942, another game launched by EA at the time. Executives at EA were worried that Renegade 2 would take sales away from Battlefield 1942, and it was cancelled.
Command & Conquer: Continuum was another game that was chopped when Westwood was closed in 2003. Continuum was to be a MMORPG that was set in the C&C universe and featured unique range-based combat not seen in other MMORPG’s at the time. The game didn’t get very far in the development process, but did feature influences such as the GDI, Nod, and CABAL factions from the main C&C games. Important locations that had been designed were a half-underwater Los Angeles, Area 51, and a place called ‘Dino Island’
A sequel that was cancelled was called called Command & Conquer: Tiberian Incursion. It was developed by Westwood, but never finished. It was supposed to bridge the gap of the series’ two storylines, Tiberian Sun and Red Alert, using a Time Machine. A few elements of the game did see use in the eventual sequel Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars which was developed by EA Los Angeles, who absorbed Westwood studios.
Command & Conquer: Arena was a multiplayer oriented game that was never announced to the public. Set after the events of Tiberium Wars and its expansion game Kane’s Wrath, the game was never intended to be canon with other Tiberium games. It was intended as a multiplayer game aimed at the Asian market. When higher-ups at EA demanded the addition of single player campaigns, developers instead decided to take the game in a new direction and ended up with Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, which received extremely negative reviews.
Another cancellation in the series was codenamed Project Camacho. It was set in the C&C timeline, after a successful Chinese invasion of mainland USA. The game was to be a first-person tactical combat game, similar to Renegade but was cancelled in 2009.
EA Los Angeles was developing a game called Tiberium that was to be a shooter in the Command & Conquer universe. Images of the game were revealed when the January 2008 issue of Game Informer was leaked, and EA announced the project just a day after. The game featured an invasion from the alien faction Scrin, who were seen in other C&C games. It was cancelled in September 2008, after an EA spokesperson announced that it was not up to quality standards.
The series’ last release was in 2010, but there were plans of a reboot in 2013 that were shelved. Command & Conquer was the name given to the game to be developed by Victory Studios, making it the third studio to develop a C&C game. It was cancelled on October 29, 2013. Two days later, Victory Studios closed all together.
With the brand-new Command & Conquer Remastered, the franchise has finally gotten the modern facelift it deserves. Luckily, it wasn’t cancelled.