Something to look forward to: Few games can excite missiles in silos like the original Command and Conquer. With a remaster in the works at two development studios, EA producer Jim Vessella recently posted an update on Reddit, where he shared a brief gameplay teaser and discussed some features of the game that players can look forward to.
It's not that often when gamers feel positive and hopeful towards an announcement from EA, but the publisher did kindle such sentiments last year when it revealed plans of remastering the original Command and Conquer games.
A Reddit post by Jim Vessella begins by addressing an important concern of gamers, who had been wondering if the remaster was going to be 2D or 3D. "We're ready to share the Remaster has been developed in the classic 2D visual style, unlocking our ability to stay as authentic as possible to the original games." wrote Jim.
Since the plan for EA is to remaster, and not remake the classic games, Jim says their goal has been to remain authentic to the original feel of the RTS game, as he discussed recovering the source code of C&C Tiberian Dawn and C&C Red Alert in order to "accurately match the core gameplay, feel, and signature look of the legacy titles." and that ultimately led to choosing 2D visual style over 3D, as shown in the teaser above.
Jim also mentions that every gameplay asset has been "re-concepted, re-modeled, and re-animated" by the passionate, artistic team of Lemon Sky, one of the two development studios behind the game. Assets like the Construction Yard and Tesla Tank are rendered and exported in 2D to lineup "frame for frame with the original visuals." This approach also ended up with the Grenadier taking over more than 600 frames for a single unit.
Meanwhile, Petroglyph, the second development studio, has been able to come up with real-time switching of Legacy/Remastered graphics in Campaign missions for added nostalgia. "This means at any time when playing a Campaign mission, you can tap a single key to smoothly toggle between the original assets at 320 x 200, to the Remastered assets up to 3840 x 2160." said Jim, hoping that this would become a fan favorite feature.
He also mentions the ability to zoom the camera allowing players to "take in all the high definition detail, with an effective zoom distance between the DOS and C&C Gold camera heights." and encouraged them to head over to their new website to see more examples of the visual differences and updates.