The Forgotten (mod)

Command & Conquer 3: The Forgotten is a mod that aims to bring back and tell the story of the faction that is often left forgotten - the Tiberian mutants.

Background
The Forgotten, featured in and, are an ever-growing group of individuals who are afflicted with Tiberium-based illnesses. Detested, marginalized, and oppressed by the three superpowers, The Forgotten have begun to rally against GDI, Nod, and the Scrin. Since their story was not featured in Tiberium Wars, the mod aims to tell it in a compelling fashion, through a deep singleplayer campaign, unique faction composition and engaging gameplay. It is the first fan-made mod to feature HD full motion videos (1080p), just like Command & Conquer itself.

The mod was released on September 21, 2010, and soon became the #1 mod on Mod DB. Its release was covered by general gaming sites across the web, including GamersHell, StrategyInformer, FilePlanet and RockPaperShotgun. Lead C&C 3 designer Samuel Bass publicly endorsed the project.

Plot
The story focuses on Salvadore Trogan, a former Nod mutant spy, who acts as the leader of the Forgotten faction and sends the player character on various missions. Trogan believes that there's no place for the mutant people in GDI's "sanitized world" (a quote from Kane) or Kane's vision (showing a recording of his infamous remark "Never say 'trust us' to a mutant."), and that armed rebellion is the only option for the Forgotten.

In order to rally more mutants to their cause, Trogan tasks the Forgotten Commander to capture the Fernsehturm in Berlin, which will send his message to the "thousands, if not millions" of Forgotten people in the Yellow zones and Red zones of Eastern Europe. However, the area is heavily protected by GDI forces, and the Commander is forced to engage them in order to capture the TV tower. In Berlin, the commander located and captured an abandoned Nod war factory, and gained access to the Tick tanks from the previous wars to bolster the Forgotten's meager forces. Eventually, Forgotten salvagers managed to capture the Fernsehturm, and Forgotten forces held off GDI reinforcements long enough for them to reconfigure the tower for their uses.

Realizing that the Forgotten is in dire need of advanced weapons, Trogan sends the commander to a GDI air force base in the region to steal aircraft and missile technology. For this mission, the Forgotten deploys a new weapon created by their scientists: the Fissure tank, a powerful artillery vehicle capable of clearing garrisoned buildings. By the time the commander's forces arrived, Nod is already preparing an attack of their own on the base. Taking advantage of the chaos, Forgotten salvagers captured the GDI Tech center and Airfield in the base, taking GDI's advanced technology with them.

Nod's Inner Circle was embarrassed by their failure to penetrate GDI's defenses. Unfortunately, the Brotherhood learned of the Forgotten's plan to construct their own attack aircraft with stolen GDI technology and mounted an attack on the small force carrying plans for the aircraft. Fortunately, they managed to build up a base and deploy their newly acquired assault aircraft, the Sidewinder, as well as the Slicer, a powerful artillery vehicle armed with stolen missiles, effective against both vehicles and aircraft. They also made use of tunnels made by local villagers, which allowed them to transport their units quickly across the battlefield. In the end, the Forgotten forces successfully removed Nod's presence from the area.

At this point, the Scrin arrived on Earth, confirming the suspicion of both Trogan and Kane. Trogan ordered the Commander to establish a foothold on the Italian coast, where he destroyed two heavily fortified GDI and Nod bases. He then sent another one of his generals, Abel Livy, on a suicide mission to destroy the Threshold in the Italian Red Zone, in order to distract the superpowers from the Forgotten's true objective: a backup Relay Node in the Romanian Red Zone that the aliens constructed in secret. Only Kane himself and Trogan knew of this Relay Node, due to the knowledge they gained from the Tacitus.

The site of the Relay Node was also the site of a Threshold Tower, and all three superpowers were gathered there. After an extremely difficult battle, the Forgotten Commander fought through layers and layers of Nod defenses and destroyed the backup Relay Node. It is revealed that Kane had control over the Relay Node all along, and he planned to use it for unknown purposes before he was stopped by the Forgotten.

After the mission, Trogan congratulated the Commander and informed him that even though Livy died, his efforts made GDI success in the Italian Red Zone possible, and that General Jack Granger has promised a truce, reinstatement of humanitarian aid, as well as a personal apology. However, before he could finish, his compound was destroyed by an airstrike ordered by Redmond Boyle, and the transmission cuts off.

The mod ends as the transmission reroutes to another camera, showing a GDI news report playing in the ruins of the compound: GDI forces have taken credit for the destruction of the backup Relay Node, and the newscaster comments that the Forgotten people's future seems bleak.

Gameplay
Gameplay-wise, the mutants have to rely on their ingenuity to combat GDI and Nod because of their limited resources.

Their arsenal includes reverse-engineered hunter seeker drones from the Second Tiberium War, Mortar squads that rain death in a portable package, jets that strafe the enemy with up to 7 heavy Gatling guns, salvaged scrapyard tanks such as the Nod Tick tank, ramming Bulldozers and Commandos that can recruit volunteers to serve as doubles to confuse the enemy. They also employ clever tactics such as building tunnel networks, harnessing Tiberium life forms, and spreading their message within the sympathetic populace of the Red Zones.

They are arguably the most diverse faction composed mostly of old school TWII technology, as well as new technologies taken from GDI and Nod. In the campaign mission, much of the story of the technology is explained through the player's actions, for example, raiding a GDI base that produces aircraft and drones.

Since the Mutant hovel was re-purposed as the Forgotten's barracks and the Mutant Marauder became a Forgotten unit, the neutral hovels found in skirmish maps are replaced by a new neutral structure: the upgrade center. When captured by a player, three free and mutually-exclusive upgrades become available, one each for speed, armor, and firepower. When a given upgrade is selected, it provides a 10% boost in the given attribute to all of the player's units. Upgrades cannot be reversed.