Or, with a more succinct 90s twist, The Gulf War: Part Deux.Īll kidding aside, there's a real earnestness to the depiction of the world in Command & Conquer. The game might as well have been called The Gulf War, but with alien crystals. And what kind of message did the GDI victory impart on players in the mid-90s? A Western led, United Nations-sanctioned multilateral force using superior technology destroys an anachro-terrorist cult led by a charismatic madman based in the Third World in order to secure control over precious energy resources. Although you could play through the campaign as either the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) or the Brotherhood of Nod, only the GDI victory was considered canon. The first Command & Conquer, released in 1995, didn't just reflect post-Cold War international relations, it was enthusiastic about them. Players in 2019, however, must wonder if Tiberian Sun represents a schlocky relic of a bygone era or a prescient prediction of an impending reality.
Set in 2030, Tiberian Sun asks two difficult but important questions: are we better off if the "good guys" win? And, is this version of Earth, on the verge of ecological disaster, even worth fighting over? These questions, like the game's FMV sequences, could easily be laughed off by players in the halcyon days of the 1990s. In 1999 Westwood Studios took that plausible real-world setting further with Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun. The Command & Conquer series, however, played with a parallel version of the real world heavily influenced by post-Cold War international relations. They are set in either the distant past, the distant future or in the distant recesses of our minds. Beyond being great games, these titles also told stories that feel unproblematic. Looking back on the real-time strategy boom of the late 90s, it's unsurprising that modern audiences tend to celebrate Age of Empires, Starcraft and Warcraft.
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