Earlier this week, Electronic Arts invited Destructoid out to its studios in Redwood Shores to check out Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight for the PC. While most people’s priorities would be to find out how Command & Conquer 4 is changing the C&C formula, my main concern was finding out if we would be seeing any celebrities making an appearance. What can I say? I have a guilty pleasure when it comes to celebrities and gossip.
I asked lead designer and the man behind the Command & Conquer fiction, Sam Bass, if we would be seeing any celebrities pop up. We won’t be, and we can blame Sam for that. Luckily, there’s a good reason behind this.
“Our cinematics always get written off as sort of campy,” he explains. “It works really well for Red Alert where it’s kind of tongue-in-cheek. Whereas C&C 4, the story itself is pretty dark. It’s a dark grim, tale. So we wanted to have it be more believable.”
Sam goes on to say “the goal was to hire actors who weren’t known, outside of Joe Kucan [Kane] of course cause I think there would be rioting if we replaced Joe. And he’d personally kill me.”
“We wanted to get actors who weren’t known faces but were good actors so you could just believe them as the character as opposed to going “OH IT’S THE GUY FROM STARSKY AND HUTCH!” So we wanted to take a different approach. It’s a little risky cause you get a little less bit of mind share with unknown people but I think it actually really helps the story.”
The cinematics this time around have more of a “movie-like” quality to them, too. The actors are on real sets, and the camera moves about as opposed to the static shots of Red Alert 3. My time was short with Tiberian Twilight, but the new cinematic approach hooked me in pretty fast; I was actually shocked by one of the game’s early story events.
Check back later today as I’ll be bringing you a full preview of Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight. And remember, blame Sam Bass for the lack of what you’re seeing above in Tiberian Twilight.
