Command & Conquer: Rivals

Command & Conquer: Rivals is a mobile strategy title developed by Redwood Studios and published by Electronic Arts, announced on 9 June 2018 during EA Play and released worldwide on 4 December 2018 after a 5-month "pre-alpha" period in select countries.

The pre-alpha version can currently be played by Android users as of the announcement date, but is only available in the United States and Canada, while players from other regions can only pre-register for access. The Early Bird Bundle has been announced for players who register early, which will include the Titan unit, and extra credits and diamonds. Eventually, the pre-alpha was released in Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand which, unlike the USA and Canada, did not have invitation-based access, but was free to join.

Command & Conquer: Rivals is strictly non-canon, as it is intended to be a "Tiberium All Stars" game.

Development
On 7 November 2017, the Command & Conquer community noticed that Greg Black, until then a Blizzard Entertainment employee and former key Electronic Arts Los Angeles staff member, had returned to Electronic Arts a short while before, and immediately assumed through his earlier work that he was working on a real-time strategy game there.

Apart from a few teases on Greg Black's Twitter account, the only mentions of the game before the official announcement were an anonymous email sent to the Giant Bomb podcast on 1 May 2018 and a leak of information on Reddit's /r/commandandconquer subreddit on 19 May 2018.

The game was officially unveiled on 9 June 2018, during the first day of EA Play. In a 10-minute gameplay overview for IGN that same day, it was stated that the game had already been in development for 2 years by the time of the announcement.

On 14 June 2018, Black revealed the focus points of the first patch for the pre-alpha version. Subsequent patches were released on an approximately weekly basis.

On 20 July 2018, community manager referred to only as "dance210" announced that the progress made by people who participated in the pre-alpha phase will not be wiped.

On 8 August 2018, senior producer referred to only as "Gasty" announced "fair play" changes in the game, which will arrive before the worldwide launch, but before them, premium currencies will be activated. Players will be split to leagues (Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc.), and within those leagues, unit levels will be capped, so even if a player has a unit that is over the league's level cap, that unit will be brought down for the durations of the matches in the said league. Once players enter a higher league, they will not be relegated to the lower one again. Win streaks will be awarded in a way that after the third consecutive win, the player will receive twice as many medals until the first loss. When the matchmaker does pair two players who are not of a similar level, these matches will be marked as "challenge battles", in which lower-level players will not lose medals upon defeat but will gain double the medals if they win, while higher-level players in such matchups will gain and lose medals as normal. Although it is not mentioned in the article, commanders will have a change in art style, including the much-criticized design of Kane.

On 13 August 2018, social features were added, as well as two new units - the Juggernaut and the Giga-cannon. Several other units were added in subsequent patches.

On 30 October 2018, it was announced that the game would release fully for both Android and iOS on 4 December 2018.

Gameplay
The game involves GDI and Nod forces facing off against each other on a single screen in 1 vs. 1 matches. Each side has access to a variety of commanders, which provide different bonuses for the player's forces. Forces are commanded in real-time. Every battlefield is divided into a number of hexagons, each of which can be occupied by a single unit. For most units, only enemies in an adjacent hex can be attacked. There's a delay between moving to a hex and opening fire, so defenders tend to have an advantage.

Each player gets to pick up to 6 units from their arsenal to use in a match. These units are split into four categories: infantry, vehicles, aircraft, and specialized tech forces. Units are deployed from respective structures, which have to be constructed in the field. Tiberium influx is constant, and every commander receives additional Tiberium at the same rate. However, the rate of influx can be increased by constructing Harvesters. The more units a player has on the field, the longer it takes to train new ones. More units will be added to the game over time. Each unit has a special role in which they are good at, and leveling them up increases their statistics. Commanders can also be levelled up.

The main objective is to destroy the enemy's base. On the center of each map, there is a nuclear missile silo that is controlled by the owner of the most launch pads (control points). Launch pads are owned by simply moving units on the hexes belonging to the point. If at least one unit of the opposing player is found on the same launch pad, the launch pad is then considered contested and does not belong to any one player until only one player's units remain. Base can take two nuclear missile hits before collapsing. Bases can also be attacked directly by conventional units. The nuclear missile's meter is constantly going up, so a player can potentially direct the launch at the last minute.

The fog of war returns from previous games.

Three currencies exist in the menus, outside of matches: credits, diamonds, and fuel. Credits' are used for levelling up commanders and units. Every time a match is won, a player earns "gas cans" that can be used to claim chests, but players have to wait a few hours for the chests to be unlocked. One can also only earn so many gas cans, so eventually a player will max out on gas and have to wait until their current chest unlocks before earning more.

Global Defense Initiative

 * Colonel Jackson
 * Dr. Liang
 * General Solomon
 * Lieutenant Strongarm
 * Cdr.McNeil

Brotherhood of Nod

 * Jade
 * Kane
 * Oxanna Kristos
 * Seth

Plot
The Global Defense Initiative has received intelligence concerning numerous nuclear missile silos across the globe. Both GDI and Nod forces have moved in to secure them.

Reception
Upon its unveiling, community response to the game was overwhelmingly negative, and the Twitter hashtag NotMyCnC quickly picked up in popularity. Both the game's reveal and gameplay trailers had an overwhelmingly negative response via YouTube's like/dislike system, despite the latter video being unlisted shortly after publishing. It was further noted that the game's Twitter feed had a very small following, along with minimal activity. In an interview for Eurogamer on 11 June, Michael Martinez and Greg Black acknowledged the response to the announcement, but invited players to play the game for themselves and give it "a fair shake", noting also that it will be a challenge to win over the core Command & Conquer fanbase.

Trivia

 * According to the URL of the game's Google Play page and the name of its APK, its working title may have been Command & Conquer: Warzones.
 * Its relation to Command & Conquer (Mobile) is unknown, if it even exists.