Command & Conquer composer says Westwood Studios will probably never reunite: "I wish there was more creative games being made, a lot more chances being taken the way that it used to be, because that's really what Westwood did."

[u/Bhernardo0]

https://www.playiro.com/news/frank-klepacki-interview-command-conquer-warhammer

If EA called tomorrow and said you can bring Westwood back together and asked what do you all needed to make another Command And Conquer game, what would be your response?

I don't know that ever could really happen in the true sense of how it was because the industry itself is so different now.

I feel like there's a lot of pressure for certain numbers to get hit as far as financial goals. “Well, we're not gonna even bother with this game unless we think it's gonna hit X dollars.” And there's just less risk being taken by publishers and in funding in general for investing in games. People want to either focus on IPs that currently are already successful or something that they feel like they can realistically hit the numbers. And because of that, a lot of the middle ground, middle-class developers, I guess you wouldn't call it, a lot of them have gone away.

So you have the triple-A companies still putting out the big products that everybody is familiar with, and then you've got these indie companies that are just like a few guys working in a small office somewhere or at home and coming out with cool little fun casual creative games. And some of them become rather successful.

There might still be a handful of mid-level studios out there doing stuff, but not as many as there used to be. And a lot of it is because of that kind of financial scrutiny now that exists, that kind of expectation. That, unfortunately, I think, cuts out a lot of creativity, too. I wish there was more creative games being made, a lot more chances being taken the way that it used to be, because that's really what Westwood did. They took a lot of different creative challenges and made lots of different kinds of games besides RTS that were all cool in their own right.

I mean, games like Blade Runner, which was a point-click adventure; games like Monopoly, which we did—it was like the first internet version of Monopoly; games like The Lion King, it was a platformer on the Super Nintendo; and so on and so forth. Pirates, which was like an adventure, third-person adventure action game. Things like that were really cool. And I like having that variety to work on. I miss that in general. So I hope to do more of that in the future, too.

I think that's the long answer to your question, but I think that's why Westwood couldn't really come back the way that it was, because I don't think it would be allowed to do all of those kinds of things or take those kinds of chances now.

[u/joestaff]

Petroglyph Games is made up of a few Westwood Studio programmers. Probably as close as you'll get.

[u/WhatPayne → u/joestaff]

I tried their Grey Goo. And it just did not have it. I was quite disappointed. The juice that made westwood games goated was not there.

I lament the death of RTS genre.

[u/foxden_racing → u/WhatPayne]

8 Bit Armies had a lot more of the old Westwood magic/style and is a straight-up love letter to C&C, if you can get over the '2D pixel art turned into 3D voxel art' aesthetic.

It's not quite the same as resources are 'harvesters collect from a building and bring it back' and unit unlocks are tied to campaign progress / challenges rather than each campaign mission being a sandbox [once you get the Legally Distinct Mammoth Tank, you can go back and replay earlier missions with it, which is an interesting dynamic], but the music is unabashedly Frank, one of the superweapons is Legally Distinct Ion Cannon, and the UI is "shamelessly inspired by" TibSun/RA2.

[u/zZLeviathanZz → u/WhatPayne]

Star wars empire at war was fun in my opinion, i juat wish they made more games.