The remaster of Command and Conquer: Red Alert has been made playable for the first time, a statement from the development team has revealed.
Producer Jim Vessella made the announcement on the Command and Conquer subreddit today, along with presenting a new art asset to celebrate the occasion: A Tesla Tank from Red Alert’s second expansion Aftermath, originally released in 1997. Vessella also reiterated the development goal of ‘maintain[ing] the authenticity of the original in-game asset’:
In an effort to take advantage of the 4k resolution, many of our earlier unit concepts included extra widgets and details, but we often found this compromised the unit’s readability at camera game height. So we continued to iterate, and over the months we’ve begun to hone in on these elements, and feel like the Tesla Tank here strikes a good balance between readability and those added details.
Despite this, there’s apparently been ‘healthy debate’ surrounding whether to portray the Tesla Tank’s dome by way of its in-game model, or its cinematic appearance. (It should totally have two rings.) According to the statement, art assets like these have been in development through ‘the past several months’ and show no signs of being hindered.
Other details included Tiberian Dawn’s first campaign mission reaching Alpha status, and the remastered assets for said mission being fully utilised in said build. ‘I’ll admit when playing this full mission experience’, said Vessella, ‘the game started to transport me back to when I first played C&C, and I hope it does the same for all of you when the game is released.’ The games entered full production last month, after work began last December. It looks like things are coming along nicely.
Command and Conquer: Remastered remains scheduled for release next year.
Arana blames her stunted social skills and her general uselessness on a lifetime of video games. Between her ears is a comprehensive Team Fortress 2 encyclopedia. Her brain remains at large.
