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Throwback Thursday for 20th October

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In this week's edition of Throwback Thursday, we remember another Command & Conquer game that didn't reach us... in its intended form, at least. Command & Conquer: Arena was to be a multiplayer-oriented spin-off set in the Tiberium universe after the events of Kane's Wrath, where GDI, Nod and Scrin units would battle in arenas for the spectators' pleasure. The game would feature so-called C&C Points for purchasing units, upgrades and skins. The beta key found in the Red Alert 3 Premier Edition led to a site designed similarly to one of the logo variations of C&C Arena, even though it was supposedly meant for the Asian market. The game was in-development around late 2008 (proven by this Zone Raider concept), until, according to interviews with the developers like Greg Black, EALA was forced to create a full game out of it in mere months by higher-ups at EA, leading to the Tiberian Twilight title we all know. Little further information exists on the game, apart from some concept art and

leaked in June 2010.

Remember, you can click on the preview to see a larger and more detailed image. Don't forget to check out the Throwback Thursdays archives if you've missed a week. Check back again next Thursday for another Throwback. Send in your ideas for future instalments. We also encourage you to share this on social media using the hash tags #ThrowbackThursday, #CnCTBT and #CNCNZTBT.

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To be honest, that isnt a Zone Raider Concept.

 

Its a TS style grenadier (Arena had a lot of units from older games) that got cut during development. A couple of leftovers where still in the released game.

 

As the KW Titan and Wolverine (and a couple of other units) were meant for Arena, its safe to safe that both games were developed at the same time.

Edited by Stygs

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Somewhere, the unit was referred to as a Zone Raider, so I just went with it, even naming it as such in my personal C&C art archive. I'll have to retrace my steps (again).

 

 

Arena had a lot of units from older games

 

Oh?

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They certainly added a lot of TS style units to Arena in the beginning:

-KWs Titan and Wolverin were meant for Arena

-GDI grenadiers with a disc weapon (the concept art from above), Orca Bombers and flying GDI infantry (tooltip sounds like RA2 Rocketeers) are mentioned in leftovers

-Sandstorm and Mastodon are almost certainly from this phase of development and clearly based on TS units

 

 

I am not certain if these units were additions to the TW unit list or replacements, but as far as I understood the idea, the player would have been able to customize their army and their units from a large unit pool. So you could choose what units you wanted in your army (do you want a Predator or a Titan as MBT? A Firehawk or an Orca Bomber?) and customize the unit with skins and weapons.

 

 

From that I can tell, the unit roster consisted of reimagined TS units (see above), TW/KW units (not sure if the KW units were added to Arena or if they were initially meant for Arena and later added to KW) and a couple of new ones.

When EALA was forced to turn it into CnC4, they updated/merged/cut a lot of these units designs.

Edited by Stygs

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I have no idea why they started C&C: Arena in the first place after Sole Survivor was so unsuccessful.

 

EALA was forced to create a full game out of it in mere months by higher-ups at EA, leading to the Tiberian Twilight title we all know.

 

Good marketing as they pretty much marketed those quick uninformed turn-ups into brave new design decisions in their "game designer interview" clips.

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I have no idea why they started C&C: Arena in the first place after Sole Survivor was so unsuccessful.

Sole Survivor and Tiberian Twilight are nothing alike. They are also from completely different generations. Sole Survivor's fate had absolutely no relevance to Tiberian Twilight's.

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