Command & Conquer Remastered Collection

Development

At EA Play 2018, Electronic Arts presented Command & Conquer: Rivals and received feedback that gamers wanted another PC release in the franchise. They contacted Petroglyph Games, founded by former programmers of Westwood Studios, who welcomed the collaboration. The development process involved close collaboration between the studios and the franchise community. Initially uncertain whether to create a remake or a remaster, the team chose a remaster after the popularity of titles such as Age of Empires: Definitive Edition.

Petroglyph used the original 1995 game engine to keep the game familiar, with minor tweaks and bugfixes. They ported Red Alert's artificial intelligence to the original game due to similarities in the codebase. Lemon Sky Studios in Malaysia updated the graphics and animations.

Petroglyph frequently contacted the community for feedback on art and direction, recruiting top modders, competitive players, and shoutcasters into a private Discord server for continuous input. The box art was originally created by a community member and later commissioned by Petroglyph. The multiplayer component was rebuilt from scratch, and achievements and a level editor were added.

The team intended to remaster the full motion video cutscenes in high definition but could not locate the original master videotapes, which were considered lost. A search for backup tapes yielded hours of B-roll footage and tapes copied from low-resolution CD-ROM video files. They then remastered the cutscenes from PlayStation video files, seeking community help with AI upscaling techniques. The game launched on Steam and Origin on June 5, 2020.

Reception

Critics gave Command & Conquer Remastered Collection a warm welcome. On Metacritic, it earned generally favorable scores, while OpenCritic reported a 92% critic recommendation rate, calling it "mighty." Alex Battaglia of Digital Foundry praised how it plays, looks, and sounds. Polygon's Ben Kuchera called it a respectful yet surprisingly feature-rich return to the series. Destructoid's Chris Moyse hailed it as a masterclass in revitalizing a classic game.