It's the game that's been on everyone's lips since Westwood's official admittance of the title a few months back. A 3D first-person perspective shooter based in the Command & Conquer universe no less. Well at this year's ECTS at Kensington Olympia, PC Zone was lucky enough to be lead away from the melee of the main hall, to a small office where Louis Castle, Westwood's Executive Vice President, revealed his Holy Grail.
Inspiration
Command & Conquer: Renegade is the first of Westwood's 'new line' of games set in the Command & Conquer universe. Using the first Command & Conquer timeframe as its setting, you play the role of Jack Shepherd, a C&C commando sent on various missions against the now familiar NOD forces led, once more, by Kane. 'It's called Renegade because the Commando character was always intended to be just one hair shy of a mercenary.' explains Louis when pressed about the title. 'He's sort of on GDI's side, but not completely aligned with them.'
The inspiration comes from the lone commando missions from the Command & Conquer games. 'We thought wouldn't it be great to have a bunch of those missions and do it in the third person?' Louis says. And we couldn't agree more. Nothing beat tearing around those C&C maps picking off the computer's grunts while systematically devastating each and every building you came across. Except perhaps playing multiplayer and picking off your mate's grunts while systematically devastating each and every building you came across. Yup, without a doubt these were some of C&C's finest moments.
Do It Yourself
Now you may be surprised to find out that Westwood has been working on this project for more than two years but made a decision to keep the project tightly under wraps until the base technology was ready. This was due to the need to build an entire game engine from scratch, as Louis reveals: 'We had to build our own engine because all of our missions happen outdoors, or predominantly outdoors. Even where you have indoor missions, like taking out a power plant, it generally has an affect on the outdoor area where GDI forces might be attacking the base. It was very important for the engine to handle the size of the outdoor areas we need. To get what we wanted we had to build it ourselves.'
The outdoor areas, it has to be said, are nothing short of stunning. Wandering around the demo map that Westwood has to show us, we start running through the trees, over fields, up some hills (jumping over some amazing waterfalls on the way) and to the top of a hill. From there we can look down upon a vast landscape spreading out beneath us, and that's when it hits - we're looking at Command & Conquer. In 3D. The landscapes are straight out of the game. The rivers, the rocky outcrops, the hills, the waterfalls. And then we think of the size, the sheer scale, of C&C's maps, and imagine how far they must stretch into the distance beyond that hill. These levels are starting to look big. 'Think of them as entire levels of Command & Conquer.' says Louis, obviously noticing our jaws around our feet. 'There can be an enormous amount of gameplay in even one mission.' He's not wrong.
It's not just the landscape, though, that is pure C&C, but the buildings too. Louis leads us into one of the NOD bases, deserted for the purposes of ECTS sight-seers: 'There are some very impressive structures, all from C&C. We have the Comms Centres, Refinery, Construction Yards.' And before our eyes, towering high above our heads is that all too familiar red fist of The Hand Of NOD - it really is a strange feeling looking UP at it rather than down.
The buildings are modelled in such high detail. 'All of the buildings have literally thousands of polygons, and you can run inside of them. If you're in a building and you see a window you can shoot it out and shoot down outside to help your troops. You can climb up the scaffolding, run across catwalks and use external elevators. There are also subterranean passages.' We're told the NOD Temple, for instance, has SIX subterranean levels to fight your way through, all interconnecting with other buildings by a subterranean tunnel network. The levels start to look even bigger.
Let's Get Physical
Renegade also has support for C&C's vast amount of vehicles - and you can get into every one of them - and not always as the driver. Climb up to an empty vehicle and you can jump right in, although often, Louis says, it's safer just to jump on the back and hitch a sly ride.
'Making any vehicle work in a game properly is a lot of work.' Louis reveals. 'With the number of vehicles that are in Renegade and the different types, NOD buggies, rocket bikes, Orca helicopters, hovercraft - it's very difficult to get that number of vehicle dynamics.' To get around this problem, Westwood has opted for 'a true physics engine' in the game. 'The wheels all have independent suspension, there are six degrees of freedom, you can go over any type of terrain or any object.'
The physics engine doesn't end with the vehicles. 'There's a true ballistics system, we track the bullets properly.' Louis takes us up to the top of a ridge and whips out the sniper rifle. A NOD soldier is patrolling the area in front of the base and we are shown the detail with which projectiles are tracked. With one carefully aimed shot, the soldier's leg is taken out from beneath him and down he goes. His cries for help bring a previously unseen soldier running to his aid. As the two struggle amongst the trees, Louis lets off another shot, and down goes the good Samaritan - stone dead with a bullet in the head. 'It's pretty important in the game for certain strategies to know where you are going to hit people. By clipping one guy and have him freak out, it draws others out you so you can get a clear shot at them.'
Westwood appears to have stuck to the familiar C&C themes in Renegade and this counts for gameplay, too. 'If you know C&C, you'll know that if you blow up a building, enemy units will come out and this happens here too.' Louis sets a mine on an enemy installation and, just as in the top-down version, a couple of NOD troops come scuttling out of the debris. 'As an action game you know what you have to do; you have to run, shoot and explore, that's true of very action game. The difference is, if you know the C&C universe you might be able to anticipate what certain characters in certain situations are going to do.'
Team Fortress Too
Westwood has given a lot of thought to the multiplayer element of Renegade. ' It's a very Team Fortress approach, but with real scripted missions.' says Louis. 'You can play as a team against a NOD base while another team is trying to stop them. We also have typical deathmatches and capture the flag.'
This sounds right up our street. With the game's engine reputedly supporting up to 256 players, this opens up the doors for full scale clan wars - 128-a-side!
The Future
With the game looking so polished already we were not surprised to find out that Westwood hope to have Renegade finished and out to testing by the end of the year, with an expected shipping date of 'spring at the latest'. So what next for the Las Vegas-based developer, Command & Conquer 3D?
'Yeah, we'll eventually do that,' Louis tentatively reveals. 'But not until we can get the performance where we can get hundreds of units running around the screen all at once, and it runs well even on low-end hardware.'
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