In a newly published financial document, EA revealed that it’s working on a slate of unannounced games due out at the end of 2023. It’s hardly a surprise that the game publisher is working on new games, but the details in the document have got all of us on TRG excitedly arguing over what they could, nay, should be. Such as a new Command & Conquer game.
EA says it’s working on a major IP, partner title, remake, and a sports title in the document. The partner title is most likely Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2, a game already confirmed to be in production – though early reports had it due out in early 2023, this document could be the first sign its release date has slipped.
Earlier this week, EA and FIFA announced the end of their 30-year partnership, with both organizations saying they would continue making football games. FIFA with an officially branded title; EA, with a new EA Sports FC series. That could be the unannounced sports title listed in the financial document – although EA is still due to release FIFA 23 next year, so it seems unlikely it would be releasing a competing sports game, presumably made by a different studio, within the same year.
Let speculation commence
Now, right off the bat, I’ll admit what will follow is pure speculation, as the details EA has shared are the slimmest of slim. For instance, “Major IP” could mean a new game set within a Major IP or a new Major IP altogether. I’m leaning towards the former purely because EA has shown that it’s keen to return to its early successes from new angles – such as Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, the virtual reality reinterpretation of its World War 2 shooter.
The two most likely contenders are Medal of Honor and Titanfall. When EA bought Respawn Entertainment, the developer of Titanfall and Apex Legends, in 2017, it also bought a team made up of the developers behind Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, one of the most critically-acclaimed entries in the series; it’s also the team that went on to form Infinity Ward and create Call of Duty. Essentially, EA is sitting on one of the industry’s most talented first-person shooter developers. Of course, in Titanfall and Titanfall 2, the team created a series that was equally well-reviewed and, while not a huge seller, has gone on to develop a devoted fan base.
When asked about Titanfall in the past, Respawn said the series isn’t dead, which gives hope for Titanfall 3 one day. Though, the studio is hustling at the moment, not only working on a sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order but also an unannounced first-person shooter and strategy game set in the Star Wars universe. So maybe a new Medal of Honor or Titanfall game will have to wait.
It’s time for a new Command & Conquer
I want to see EA revive the Command & Conquer series. One of the first games I ever played was Dune 2, the strategy game made by Westwood Studios, the team that created Command & Conquer and eventually became an EA studio. The series went from strength to strength in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, with Red Alert 2 and Command & Conquer: Generals being real highlights.
The market for strategy games bottomed out in the ‘00s, with most major publishers, except Blizzard, abandoning the genre. And, even then, Blizzard left its Warcraft games behind to focus on its MMO, and StarCraft, while an excellent series, like a lot of the strategy games released these days, caters to a hardcore fanbase. Command & Conquer scratched a casual player’s itch.
While all hope for a return to glory for Command & Conquer should have burned out by now, last year, EA went and remade the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert. These remakes are more than simple remasters; they’re loving remakes of the classic strategy games, spearheaded by the Westwood Studios team (now operating as an independent developer called Petroglyph Games). They are genuinely some of the best remakes I’ve played, and they were extremely well-received by fans. That, coupled with the success of Microsoft’s Age of Empires IV, is perhaps enough to convince EA to develop a whole new Command & Conquer game.
And, hey, if EA doesn’t make a new Command & Conquer game, I simply demand that the remake it mentioned is Command & Conquer: Renegade.