Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight Interview

So I kind of see it living in that way. I think traditional box products are getting more difficult, with the way they have to be pushed to market and supported. I think you’ll see genres like RTS probably go more the online route.

In the grim darkness of the far future, all the neat gear will have legs.

VGD: Do you think there’s a presentational issue? Even the most accessible of real-time strategy games can seem very fiddly, very intent on fine detail, perhaps a little clinical. Is there a way to glam that up for the consumer who sets more store by visual overkill?

Joshi: We definitely did a lot of refining – improving our renderer, improving a lot of little bits of the game engine, the effect system is all brand new. But you have to draw so many units and effects on the screen at any one time, versus one character not even being rendered on the screen, just drawing the environment, that you’re limited.

VGD: Sorry, I meant ‘presentation’ in terms of cinematic technique. Maybe you could put in some cutaway close-ups when buildings explode, or something in that vein.

Joshi: There are times when you want to break the camera away, and there are definitely usability concerns that we worry about when you actually wrestle the camera back from the user. But yes, I would like some of those moments, because the cool thing about videogames is that you as the player are the main character. You are not passive, just watching.

Now in real-time strategy you are obviously making every single decision, but your level of immersion is definitely different from that of a first-person shooter. I would like to see more of that, I think there’s definitely room for that in single player presentation. I personally would like to see RTS have fewer units, and be able to get right up into the action, and blend in a little bit of first-person shooter and RTS style.

So it’s different – and the draw of new users to real-time strategy, I think that’s definitely a question a lot of people are wrestling with right now. We want to open up the genre to people who are not used to playing it, but it’s definitely very different, you’re obviously a little more separated from the gameplay.

The dreaded Obelisk of Light makes a comeback.

VGD: And obviously you don’t want to water it down for the core users.

Joshi: Yes, because we’ve made a lot of decisions to make it more accessible, but it’s not the Sims. It’s more accessible, but there’s definitely the hardcore contingent who are like “hey, we want to micromanage, we want to harvest Tiberium, we want to build a base and just hang out at the base”. Whereas we want to get people into the game, get the game moving a little bit faster. It’s a tough one.

I really think other genres are kind of splitting – though they aren’t really calling it out so much – and I think RTS should split too. You should have more of a casual vein, and more of a hardcore vein. There’s no way to satisfy both groups, and I think there’s interest from both sides.

VGD: Raj, thanks for your time.

Tiberian Twilight is out for PC on 16th March in North America and 19th March in Europe.