The first in an occasional series that tracks the creation of the very latest C&C incarnation...

By Louis Castle
Executive Producer (Westwood Studios)

It's always the first question people ask about Renegade: Why build an action game in the Command & Conquer universe?

The short answer is that we've always wanted to know what it would feel like to be down on the ground, in that world, battling Nod, using all those cool weapons. You don't need a lot of analysis or research to figure out that an action game in the C&C world is a great idea.

The more interesting question is what took so long?

There are a few reasons why it's taken until now to really get Renegade moving forward. The idea for a C&C action game began floating around Westwood around 1994, well before the first C&C ever hit the shelves. As the C&C story took shape, and as certain characters started becoming interesting, the idea for an action game seemed to grow. We're not even sure who said it first, but the question was asked, "Wouldn't it be great to be down there on the battlefield?"

No further action was taken because the focus at the time was on getting the C&C finished - no small feat. You might also remember that there were only two RTS (Real Time Strategy) games in existence at that time, and a lot of what C&C was trying to do had never been done before. The action game idea went into hibernation, waiting for its opportunity.

After C&C was released, it became a worldwide phenomena and the RTS genre exploded. We had a huge hit on our hands. After that kind of success, you don't tell your publisher, "Guess what: We don't want to do another RTS game for a while. We'd like to make an pure action game." So the idea never could take root and grow.