Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars Feature Preview - Campaign Structure

This week's release of the Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars PC demo was huge news for fans of both the storied series and real-time strategy games. The first Command & Conquer game in years, Tiberium Wars represents a return to the series' mix of fast-paced RTS gameplay and full-motion video cutscenes. You will command the forces of the noble Global Defense Initiative, the shadowy Brotherhood of Nod, or the new alien faction, the Scrin, in a battle for Earth, and in between, you'll watch cutscenes starring such actors as Michael Ironside and Billy Dee Williams.

The game will depict the Third Tiberium War, Tiberium being an alien element that is slowly contaminating the planet but that can also be used as a powerful resource for building war machines and structures. The single-player campaign will consist of 38 missions divided into 11 "theaters of war," and each faction has its own unique story. We have the details of how the action in Tiberium Wars will unfold below so you can brace yourself for the battles to come when the game ships next month. Spoiler Warning: The following reveals plot details regarding the single-player campaign.

GDI

If you had a chance to play the single-player demo, you'll be familiar with the setup and opening missions of the GDI. After the first two Tiberium Wars as seen in previous Command & Conquer games, the GDI has stabilized the strategic situation. The Brotherhood of Nod has, for all practical purposes, disappeared, and the battle now is to get a handle on the Tiberium situation. Approximately 30 percent of the planet's surface is categorized as red zone, which is uninhabitable because of Tiberium contamination. Another 50 percent is categorized as yellow zone, which means it is contaminated but barely habitable. This is where many of the world's population, desperate and sympathetic to Nod, live. The remaining 20 percent of the surface is categorized as blue zone; it is Tiberium free and the last refuge for civilization and the forces of the GDI.

The GDI campaign begins in the yellow zone badlands of North Carolina. Without warning, the GDI encounters major Nod forces for the first time in years, and this a harbinger of things to come. The Brotherhood of Nod launches a decapitation attack that destroys the GDI's orbital command-and-control platform, the GDSS Philadelphia. The sudden loss of the Philadelphia cripples the GDI, and Nod forces launch attacks worldwide. Your role will be to stabilize the situation in the Northeastern blue zone on the Eastern seaboard. First up, you will have to defend the Pentagon from attack. After that, you have a choice. You can next retake Langley Air Force Base in Virginia or recapture the Hampton Roads Naval Base. This decision will influence subsequent missions. Either way, your final task in the Northeastern blue zone will be to reclaim the White House.

Next up in the GDI storyline is the North African theater of war. North Africa is a yellow zone, but it's also a Nod stronghold. The action in North Africa will take place mainly in the desert, as you might expect, but you should also expect urban combat. Alexandria will serve as a stepping stone to Cairo, your ultimate goal in North Africa. There, you must take out a nuclear-weapons facility in the city.

After North Africa, GDI forces will head to Eastern European battlefields in Croatia, Albania, and Bosnia. And after that, it's on to Western Europe, specifically Germany and Italy, for the third and fourth theaters of war. The details of these battles remain a secret, but if you know your history of the Tiberium Wars, then you'll know that Italy is where it all started, so this means a return to old battlegrounds. Only now, Italy is the heart of the world's largest red zone. The Italian battles appear to be the end of the GDI campaign, so it looks like that saga will come full circle there.

Brotherhood of Nod

It makes sense that the Brotherhood of Nod campaign partly mirrors the GDI campaign. In it, you will be able to see many of the same events seen in the GDI campaign, only from the perspective of the other side. Therefore, the Nod campaign begins with the lead-up to the attack on the Philadelphia. This will require infiltrating the Goddard Space Center in Maryland. By seizing control of that, you can neutralize all the orbital defenses and take out the Philadelphia.

As soon as the Philadelphia is down, the campaign opens up with attacks on a wide front. Again, there's a branching structure to the missions, so you can choose your next target: Andrews Air Force Base or the White House. After that, it's on to Hampton Roads Naval Base to take out a brand-new GDI aircraft carrier and to seize a port that can allow a stream of Nod reinforcements and supplies. Your ultimate objective is to capture Washington DC itself. If you succeed, you'll be promoted and move on to the next theater of war. But instead of the sands of North Africa, you're headed to South America and the Amazon.

If you're expecting to battle it out in a lush jungle paradise, forget it. South America is a big yellow zone, and the Tiberium contamination has turned the rain forests of the Amazon into a desert. You'll engage various GDI units in this area before moving on to the Atlantic coast to take out an important GDI facility. The Nod campaign will then converge again with the GDI campaign in the Eastern Europe theater of war. The details regarding this theater of war also remain a secret, but after that, there's a quick jaunt over to Australia before both campaigns finally converge upon Italy.

Scrin

Details on the Scrin campaign are very scarce because the faction wasn't officially unveiled until recently. We do know that the Scrin campaign will span across all of Europe, including an invasion of London. You should expect to see Parliament and Big Ben on the screen, probably getting blown up by the alien hordes. That's about all we know. EA is still keeping much of the Scrin campaign secret, but we will learn about the relationship of the aliens to the mysterious Tiberium over the course of Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars.