Electronic Arts is transforming Command & Conquer: Generals 2, first announced last year , into a free-to-play title simply called Command & Conquer. That doesn’t mean Generals 2 is going away, it’s just not called Generals 2 anymore. It’s part of a Command & Conquer platform that, for EA, appears to be a big initial step toward reinventing its venerable real-time strategy franchise.

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The news perhaps isn’t as shocking as it once might have been. Free-to-play games are common these days, including online shooters, MMOs and DotA-style games amongst many others. For EA VP and general manager Jon Van Caneghem, this move was the next natural step.“We’ve seen what online has been able to do for RPGs, for FPS games, for puzzle games, and the like—what I’ve been interested in is what can online do for strategy games? To that end, we’ve been developing a platform for Command and Conquer games with Generals 2 as the lead product on that platform, focusing on having a single identity across the franchise to bolster social ties and also providing us a way to add and update the games constantly over time.”“The platform itself also offers several other advantages to players and developers. With a lower barrier to entry, more people can experience our game and gain access to the cutting-edge visuals, sound and destruction of a full, AAA strategy game – for free. This live service approach also makes developing games more exciting as we are constantly responding and reacting to community feedback to deliver content that they care about.”As of yet, no specific payment structure has been determined. “We are still building out the game and the exact scope of the advanced experience has not been announced yet. In our development, we are guided by the commitment to create a gameplay experience that offers the cerebral, strategic fun and fast-paced action that fans have come to expect from our franchise with no barrier or resistance.”The Generals portion of this new Command & Conquer will still be built with Frostbite 2, though it appears to be too early to get a sense of the exact amount of content that will be included at launch. “The content that we have already created for Generals 2 will be part of this new free-to-play experience. We aren’t ready to discuss specifics about factions and units, but we are building an experience that you’d expect from a traditional Command & Conquer game, with the advantage of continuously building new content based on player and community feedback.”Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a single-player portion anymore, a feature that seemed to be a prominent part of the game the last time we had a chance to ask about Generals 2 . This new Command & Conquer will also require you to be connected online at all times. “At launch, the focus will be on multiplayer as we are currently focused on building a fun, high quality RTS experience that we want to get in your hands on as soon as possible. From there, we will continuously evaluate additional content based on a variety of player feedback.” So perhaps there could be single-player content some time later?It’s certainly an interesting approach for the franchise, and one that’s perhaps better suited for the rapidly changing world of PC gaming. For now, EA has no plans for retail distribution of the game and has “nothing related to consoles to announce at this time.”Hopefully EA will be able to share more details soon about gameplay and pricing structures with this reinvention of its RTS distribution model. “Command & Conquer is a destination for players to go to experience the Command & Conquer universe and that has the potential to extend beyond Generals. Though it starts with Generals next year, Red Alert, Tiberium and beyond will serve as additional content offerings for the game.”Interested? Then sign up for the beta . If the link doesn't work, the site should be live soon. Also, here's the initial reveal trailer in case you missed it when Generals 2 was first announced: