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C&C4 – Tiberian Twilight

Jahr:	2010
Entwickler:	Electronic Arts Los Angeles
Publisher:	Electronic Arts
Codename:	Arena
Originaltitel:	C&C4 – Tiberian Twilight
Kürzel:	4
Executive Producer:	Michael S. Glosecki
Komponisten:	James Hannigan, Jason Graves, Timothy Michael Wynn
Wertung PCG:	72% (04/2010)
Neuste Version:	1.03

Geschichte:

The year is 2062 and humanity is at the brink of extinction. With only six years left until the mysterious crystalline structure Tiberium renders the earth entirely uninhabitable, the two opposing factions - Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the Brotherhood of Nod - inevitably find themselves in desperation for the same cause: to stop Tiberium from extinguishing mankind. The unthinkable becomes reality and Nod's enigmatic leader Kane takes off for GDI headquarters.

Interessantes:

C&C4 erschien offiziell, mancherorts schon früher, am 18. März 2010; in den USA bereits am 16. März.
C&C4 unterscheidet sich mit seiner Ausrichtung auf Gelegenheitsspieler drastisch von allen anderen Teilen: Kein Basenbau, kein Ressourcenmanagement und daher weder Sammler noch Tiberiumfelder, ständiger Online-Zwang und keine Unterstützung für LAN oder dedizierte Server.
Erstmals setzte EA nicht auf GameSpy als Online-Service, sondern auf ein internes System namens Blaze.
Negativ äußerte sich auch Joseph B. Hewitt IV in einem AMA am 26.07.2014:
Every time I start to reply to this, I just shake my head and sigh.

And there is so much more you don't even know about. Like the time we were going to do a Sim Ant for mobile and it was canceled during development because marketing didn't think Ants were a good idea.

I heard Brian Michael Bendis talk about doing the Spider-Man cartoon for MTV and actually had somebody in the meeting say, "But does it have to be a spider?"
Auch Joseph Kucan gibt C&C am 31.07.2014 in einem AMA keine Chance mehr:

Hi, Joe, do you think C&C will return?

No, I don't. At least, not in anyway that would include the Kane character.

TLDR: No.
Vernichtend urteilte Ed Del Castillo in einem Podcast über EAs Umgang mit der Serie am 10.03.2014:
I think that you know Command & Conquer is a is well beyond a multi billion dollar franchise. It is an epic story that should've be told again and again and could have been as big as Star Wars if they had put the love behind it and not just try to milk it like a dairy cow.
C&C4 war nie als ein richtiger, kanonischer Tiberum-Titel geplant, sondern ist das Resultat aus Arena und einem Singleplayer-Modus. Greg Black am 23.06.2010 in einem Interview:
The important thing to know is that C&C4 was never meant to be a true Tiberium universe canonical game, but rather an experiment in online play. It originally started as out an Asian market online-only version of C&C 3. At some point the company executives decided it made the most business sense to add a single player campaign, call it C&C4, and put it in a box. The team of course protested this change in direction but the decision stood. The team did what they could to make a good game given the realities inside EA, but ultimately it was the product of a dysfunctional corporate culture.
Unterm Strich ist das Spiel ein Produkt von EAs dysfunktionaler Firmenkultur (!).
Aaron Kaufman bestätigte die Arena-Herkunft von C&C4 in einem Interview am 12.12.2010:
That was the original plan after we released Red Alert 3; C&C 4 was a transformation of a C&C specific multiplayer game, but based on market conditions and such at the time, we had to drastically change that plan. After C&C 4 CommandCOM, the community response to the gameplay was evident that process didn't have the greatest hope of succeeding, but the dev team once again poured sweat and tears in to making that game as great and unique as possible. C&C 4 may not have been C&C's best moment in the sun, but the current C&C dev team is definitely taking some key learning's from it, don't fear.
Die Entwicklungszeit betrug um die 13 Monate, was Aaron Kaufman aus dem obigen auch Interview kritisierte:
You can't make a great RTS game in 13 months and the fact our former C&C team did that nearly 5 times in a row (especially if you count BFME 1, 2, ROTWK, KW, RA3: Uprising), and produced consistent 80+ AAA titles nearly every time is one of the most unheralded and unknown miracle success stories of the video game industry ever. We should write a book on the years 2002 – 2008, or just give a tell-all to WikiLeaks.
Auch Louis Castle ist enttäuscht und bedauert den Mangel an Ressourcen während der Entwicklung in einem Interview am 08.09.2010:
C&C ran away from me quite a long time ago so I can't claim to have guided such a massive undertaking. I think it's sad that the final chapter was under resourced to the extent it was. I think C&C is one of the strongest brands in the industry and deserving of a massive development effort.
Dies wiederholte er auch in einem anderen Interview vom 15.08.2010 und erwähnte zusätzlich, dass C&C4 anders endet als man es bei Westwood plante:
LC: I think that the team they had doing it was a very talented team, they worked on a lot of the other C&C products. They were seriously resource constrained when it came to trying to make the product they wanted to make. I’m a little disappointed by the product at the end of the day. Not because the team didn’t do a good job with what they had, I just think it was under resourced to be the finale. I thought the story was interesting. It wasn’t the way we had originally envisioned it, but that’s OK. They were the ones who were in charge of the canon at that point, so it’s up to them to decide how it ends.
Aaron Kaufman verriet am 20.04.2010, dass während der Entwicklung die Scrin eingeplant waren:
There was a time when the Scrin were being considered for the game, that much is true.

-APOC
Einheiten der Scrin wurden auch in den BIG-Dateien der Beta gefunden.
LEGION aus KW ist die Nod KI.
Auf der CommandCOM wurde während der gamescom 2009 am 21.08. die Wahl des Untertitels durch die Community enthüllt: Tiberian Twilight! Ein Titel, der bis dato nur für Westwoods C&C3: TT stand und eine ebenso lange Geschichte hat.
Während das Intro bzw. Kanes Vorschlag des Tiberium-Kontrollnetzwerks an die GDI im Jahr 2062 spielt, findet die eigentliche Handlung nochmal 15 Jahre später erst im Jahr 2077 statt.
Am 09.07.2009 wurde der Nachfolger von TW offiziell angekündigt als Ende der Geschichte, die mit TD begann.
Bereits zuvor wurde C&C4 bekannt: Ein Tag vorher hat das EA UK PR Team per Twitter die Ankündigung geleakt:
Bereits am 19.06.2009 wurden die wesentlichsten Schwerpunkte von Command & Conquer 4 ganz offiziell im Rahmen einer Umfrage genannt: