It was a F2P spinoff, one of EAs early attempts to adopt (at least parts of) the asian F2P online game model, that got repackaged as a mainline "premium" game for some absurd reason. Gutted base building and resource management, crappy campaign with locked units/tech behind profile experience points even in singleplayer (can't even Ion Cannon/Nuke shit in the campaign... bleh).
Storyline was horrible offering 0 answers, ignoring all the setup C&C 3 and Kane's Wrath did (what did kane want with the towers, will the scrin come back, what's their deal with kane etc.). Instead you got FMVs about your alive/dead wife (literally this and some commander betraying GDI are the only things I remember about the story) and 0 interesting shit happening. The non-ending was just a slap in the face of any fan of the series. OTOH maybe someone had some decency and did the non-ending on purpose knowing that the game was unworthy of really wrapping up Kane's/tiberium storyline, wanting to avoid the eternal wrath of autists or something.
So essentially if you were a fan and came for the classic gameplay you got jack shit, while if you came for the story and worldbuilding of the tiberium series you also got jack shit. To add insult to injury they decided to use the subtitle that Westwood's C&C3 was originally supposed to have before EA killed the chances of that happening. And in the end it also killed the series for good.
It's a game so bad I mostly forgot it exists, only occasionally getting these semi-conscious flashbacks of the game along with a "huh, did something like that really happen?" feeling.
Before it was even revealed EA sent out a marketing survey to people who I guess played C&C3 or RA3 hinting at some of the changes in a new C&C game, mentioning crawlers by name for instance and how the base building/gameplay would be different. I figure someone on the inside was not certain about the whole game, or they were debating whether to scrap it (in it's original spin off form) or to rebrand it (which they really shouldn't have).
But wait, it gets worse. Intead of building bases you have one building unit, the Crawler, which can move around as the centerpiece of your force. It's where you build your armies from, so you can resupply your forces at the front line. You put units into your build queue (which has a maximum length of 5), which keeps ticking even after completing the first. You then deploy your Crawler, which then poops out all the units you've built in one go. This doesn't sound too bad, right?
But wait, it gets worse. Crawers come in one of three categories: Offense, Defense and Support. These determine what you can build. A bit like in the last game how you could go with regular GDI, ZOCOM and Steel Talons? Kinda, except fuck you. Offense gets a big variety of tanks, Defense gets infantry and defensive buildings, and Support gets aircraft and a bunch of support powers. Tactical rock-paper-scissors is in full play here, and you can switch between Crawlers mid-game to get the other stuff. Here's the arsenals between the Crawler types:
https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Template:Tiberian_Twilight_GDI_Arsenal
https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Template:Tiberian_Twilight_Nod_Arsenal
So yes, this means that you can no longer send out infantry supported by tanks while aircraft target vulnerable buildings. You get one type of units, you can only build base defenses including SUPERWEAPONS with the Defense Crawler and in the campaign you can look forward to getting countered when the AI has multiple Crawlers while you only get one. Good luck!
But wait, it gets worse. You now have to deal with Command Points (CP). Every unit costs a number of CP to a cap of 50. Yes, C&C now has a unit cap. The better a unit is the more CP it costs. Want to build a whole bunch of Titans like in C&C 2 and 3? Those are 6 CP each, so you can build only eight at a time. Have fun, chucklenuts!
But wait, it gets worse. The game is always online and connects to a server, so if you have spotty internet you can look forward to disconnects. And if the game disconnects either on your side or on the server side, also look foward to losing progress. Hurray!
But wait, it gets worse. This game has an account wide progression track so you can unlock things. You get XP by playing games both single player and multiplayer.
Yes. Account based progression to unlock more units.
In a fuckmothering REAL-TIME STRATEGY GAME.
Want to field the Juggernaut like in C&C 3? That's 34000 points! Better start grinding, bitch! And of course there's one track for each faction: GDI and NOD. So if you've finally unlocked everything the GDI has to offer, you can START THE FUCK OVER WITH NOD. There's twenty ranks for each faction, so you better get going!
https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Tiberian_Twilight_ranks
FUCK
