There is quite a bit of buzz around the possibility of a Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 remaster landing on Steam following a letter posted by EA’s Jim Vessella.
Featured in the listing for Command & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection, the letter refers to “the first C&C Remastered Collection.” As The Ultimate Collection is not a remaster, the logical conclusion is that if this is not a slip-up, it implies a second collection of remasters is likely.
Here’s that letter in full, with the pertinent section bolded (by us):
Dear C&C Community,
It’s been a few years since I had the opportunity to reach out and engage with you directly. I’ve truly missed that. I hope you have all stayed safe, healthy, and positive since my last post in September of 2020.
I realize many of you have been wondering about the status of Command & Conquer over the past several years. After the launch of the first C&C Remastered Collection, I told our Community Council I would continue to try and find opportunities to support the C&C community and franchise wherever possible. With that in mind, I do have an announcement we think the entire C&C Community can get excited about. The C&C Ultimate Collection is now live on Steam!
How did this come to happen? Well, a while back I heard some team members at EA had the desire to launch some of our classic titles on Steam. After hearing about this initiative, several of us proposed we include the C&C Ultimate Collection. We knew this has been a request of the C&C community for over a decade, and has been an equal goal of us passionate C&C folks around the company. As such, a dedicated strike team here at EA has been pushing to make this a reality – but we knew we couldn’t do it alone. So in the spirit of our community collaboration from the Remastered Collection, we reached out to a small group of the C&C Community to understand how we could best deliver the Ultimate Collection on Steam.
The feedback and collaboration has once again been invaluable. With improvements like better compatibility for modern operating systems and additional supported languages for both the Steam and EA App versions, we believe this is the best release of the Ultimate Collection to date.
Alongside the launch of the Ultimate Collection on Steam, we are also excited to announce the release of the beloved map editors FinalSun and FinalAlert 2 under the GPL version 3.0 license, which can also be launched directly from the Steam version of Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2. Now over 20 years since their initial release, original creator Matthias Wagner has generously repackaged these classic editors into a more compatible version for 2024. This was achievable thanks to the technical collaboration with Luke “CCHyper” Feenan, and the kindness of Olaf van der Spek, who has graciously released his XCC Library under the GPL 3.0 license as part of this effort. We cannot thank Matthias, Luke, and Olaf enough for making this a reality for the C&C community, and are eager to see where the tools and content creation go from here.A huge thank you to the community playtesters who helped provide feedback on this version of the Ultimate Collection, and the organizations of CnCNet, W3DHub, and C&C Online for continuing to support these classic titles. We hope you all enjoy these improvements to the C&C Ultimate Collection – available today on Steam.
Until next time.
Cheers,
Jim Vessella
Command & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection
While we’re let’s look at the new collection of Command & Conquer games, available on Steam now. Command & Conquer™ The Ultimate Collection includes:
- Command & Conquer
- Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Counterstrike
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert: The Aftermath
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun Firestorm
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2: Yuri’s Revenge
- Command & Conquer: Renegade
- Command & Conquer: Generals
- Command & Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour
- Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
- Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars: Kane’s Wrath
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Uprising
- Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight
This collection of 10 games and 7 expansions is retailing at £19.48, and at the time of writing has a 50% discount. That’s more than enough to keep you busy until the Red Alert 2 remaster comes along.
If that isn’t enough, why not play Red Alert 2 in your browser?
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Christian Cawley is a writer and editor who covers consumer electronics, IT, and entertainment media. He has written for publications such as Computer Weekly, Linux Format, MakeUseOf.com, and Tech Radar.
He also produces podcasts, has a cigar box guitar, and of course, loves retro gaming.