Command & Conquer (1995 video game)

Did You Know?

• The Nintendo 64 port was developed by Looking Glass Studios.
• An expansion pack titled The Covert Operations added 15 new missions and an easter egg mini-campaign involving dinosaurs.
• A spin-off game called Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor focuses entirely on online multiplayer with modes such as deathmatch and capture the flag.

Plot

The Brotherhood of Nod, an ancient cultic society led by the messianic figure Kane, develops technology to harvest Tiberium ahead of global research, using its resources to build a worldwide army. By the game's start, Tiberium has spread globally, with Nod controlling nearly half of it through footholds in poor nations and conducting terrorist attacks in wealthy countries. The Global Defense Initiative, originally a UN peacekeeping force after an alternate World War II, becomes an anti-terrorist organization aiming to eliminate Nod. The conflict becomes a world war, with the Nod campaign in Africa and the GDI campaign in Europe. The player character is not directly identified; the Nod commander is called "Nod Commander," while the sequel Tiberian Sun names the GDI commander James Solomon.

Development

Westwood Studios began developing Command & Conquer in early 1993, conceiving it near the end of Dune II's development to build on that game's foundation. Co-founder Brett Sperry described it as "the net result of the Dune II wish list" and was "fanatical" about the title, believing it summarized the gameplay. Drag-selecting and context-sensitive clicking were inspired by Apple's desktop navigation. The game originally took place in a high fantasy world but was redesigned to a modern warfare setting due to the political climate of the mid-1990s, with the Gulf War cited as a key influence.

Co-founder Louis Castle noted that "war was in the news and the threat of terrorism was on everyone's mind." Sperry believed future wars would be fought between Western society and anarchistic terror organizations without centralized government. The team made the installation process resemble hacking a "military infrastructure" to make the player feel their computer was a terminal to a real battlefield, but created a parallel universe to avoid real war's sobering issues.

Reception

Command & Conquer sold very well. In October 1995, PC Data reported it as the fourth best-selling CD-ROM product of any kind in the United States, and it ranked seventh among computer games the next month. It did not appear in the country's top ten for December. By April 1996, worldwide sales had reached half a million copies, and Westwood Studios announced over one million units sold by September of that year.

In the U.S., it was the seventh most popular computer game for the first half of 1996. The title found strong audiences in France and Germany, moving 200,000 copies in Germany alone by November 1996. Sales across all platforms hit 1.7 million by February 1997 and eventually surpassed three million. Critics were overwhelmingly favorable.

PC Gamer US called it the best strategy game of 1995, and Computer Gaming World gave it that honor as well, tying it with Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest. Computer Games Strategy Plus named it both the top real-time strategy title and the overall Game of the Year for 1995. In 1998, Command & Conquer Gold received two nominations at the first Interactive Achievement Awards: Computer Entertainment Title of the Year and PC Strategy Game of the Year.

Entertainment Weekly's Bob Strauss praised the cutscenes, voice work, and constant action, saying it "makes other war simulations look as flat as Risk." A Next Generation reviewer called it essential for strategy fans, highlighting intuitive controls, deep strategy, and full-motion video. Peter Smith of Computer Games Magazine described it as "an adrenaline rush in a box," commending the music, sound, gameplay, and story, though he noted minor problems with the artificial intelligence.