I held off posting this for a few days so that we could get some things sorted out... so now here we go. A few days ago
PlanetCNC posted a now famous picture on their website. It was a photo of a big plasma TV, featuring some interesting but hard to discern events taking place in the background with the EA Games logo and the text "Command and Conquer 3" in the foreground. There's a very long, interesting comments thread posted on Planet CNC
here talking about the photo. Unfortunately, PlanetCNC has been asked by EA to remove the picture, and naturally they have complied. There's still some copies floating around different community websites - if you look hard enough I'm sure you'll find one.
So what we do know now is that the picture is legitimate. It is indeed concept art that was posted (accidentally I believe) on an internal rotation of images on the plasma TV at EA. The photo was taken during the recent
Battle for Middle Earth community day. Adam Isgreen, Game Design Director at the EALA studio posted this message at PlanetCNC:
Guys, Petroglyph doesn't have the rights to C&C. EA owns the C&C brand. The Petro guys are doing their own stuff.
What Mark said is true. What you saw was a concept / inspirational piece of art that we did over a year ago that displays on our internal EA monitors here at EALA. Concept art is our "What if?" avenue to explore things we may or may not want to do in the future with game content, a certain look, or atmosphere / tone.
FYI, it's an image of a Scrin Primal defending against a GDI attack on a Scrin base. Obviously, the primal is winning. =)
And yes, there are still a bunch of us ex-westwood guys here.
That comment sheds light on a number of things, most obvious of which is that Petroglyph isn't making a CNC (contrary to some recent popular rumors). It also proves that the photo is obviously real, and that at one point EA was considering creating another Command & Conquer game (perhaps a Tiberian Twilight, if you will). It also lends further proof to the existance of the Scrin, and the inclusion there of in future CNC titles. It does NOT, however, prove that EA is currently working on a new CNC.
Rumor has it, though, that a new CNC has indeed been in the works at EA for quite a while now. It has supposedly been on the back burner, however. Chris Rubyor ("Delphi" - former C&C Community Manager for Westwood Studios) has previously hinted that there is in actuality a future for the Command and Conquer series. So thus the likelyhood of another CNC is high -- but afterall, only time will tell - and it could be a while.
