The high-tech war that was almost a Lord of the Rings epic
In short: Before it became a definitive real-time strategy title, Command & Conquer: Generals was a collection of wild ideas. Developers considered fantasy realms, ancient battles, and even an African warlord faction before settling on a near-future conflict between three distinct global powers.
Development for the game began in late 2000, following the success of Red Alert 2. The project, led by Mark Skaggs, underwent significant identity shifts. Early concepts ranged from a Lord of the Rings adaptation to a game focused on futuristic robot armies. The team even experimented with various engines, including Quake, Unreal, and LithTech, before ultimately refining the W3D engine into the SAGE engine.
The final product centered on a three-way struggle in the early 2020s. Players could command the high-tech United States, the heavy-tank-focused China, or the guerrilla-style Global Liberation Army (GLA). Each faction offered unique mechanics: the US utilized drones and air superiority; China leveraged hackers and massive infantry hordes; and the GLA relied on cheap, salvaged units and tunnel networks that required no power to operate.
The game's release was not without controversy. In Germany, the BPjM placed the game on a restricted list because it allegedly trivialized war, forcing EA to release a censored 'Generäle' version in mid-2003 that replaced terrorists with cyborgs. Meanwhile, the game faced a ban in China for its depiction of the Chinese military. Despite these hurdles, the title was a commercial success, particularly in the UK, where it moved over 100,000 units in early 2003.
While the franchise saw a cancelled sequel in 2013, the legacy of Generals remains. In 2025, the source code for the original game and its Zero Hour expansion was released under the GPL v3 license, ensuring the mechanics of this 2003 classic remain accessible to a new generation of players.
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