Command & Conquer 3 expanding in early 2008

Early this morning, the first Battlecast video report premiered on the official Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars Web site. After a fair amount of on-camera hamming, the Battlecast's hosts used the program to announce Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath, the first expansion pack for the popular Electronic Arts game. Due out early next year, it will focus on the titular villain, who leads the shadowy, quasi-religious global corporate/military organization known as the Brotherhood of Nod.

"It's all about Kane," one of the anchors proclaimed. "It chronicles his rise back to power after the second Tiberium War and continues all the way through C&C3." The expansion will also take the player through the third Tiberium War and beyond, and will feature actor Joe Kucan reprising his role as Kane.

In a video interview, producer Jim Vessale described the expansion in some detail. He said Kane's Wrath will once again sport high-definition live-action cutscenes, and then showed clips of actor Josh Holloway (TV's Lost) and Kucan. "It will also be introducing a few new characters," the producer cryptically promised. He went on to talk about the expansion's focus on the "global domination metagame," which he described as the board game "Risk on steroids." The game will allow for strategic moves and then segue into tactical real-time combat on the battlefield.

Vessale went on to promise that Kane's Wrath would introduce a number of new units, powers, and upgrades. It would also split each of the game's three primary factions into two subfactions with their own unique units.

Both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of Kane's Wrath will be released simultaneously, though no specific date is yet set for either title. Vessale said the expansion will also introduce the PC's "radial interface" to the Xbox 360 game (pictured) to allow for faster issuing of orders to units in the game.

For more, read GameSpot's exclusive interview with Mike Verdu, executive producer of Kane's Wrath, at EA's Los Angeles studio.