Petroglyph is on a roll. The studio, founded by former Westwood developers, knocked it out of the park with the Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection. And now they’re following up with a game that’s basically a spiritual successor to Command & Conquer‘s FPS/RTS hybrid, Command & Conquer: Renegade.
The game’s Earthbreakers, and it was announced as part of Steam’s Summer Game Festival. It’s supposedly launching sometime this year, although you can play a demo version right now. Functionally, it mirrors the same basic setup as Renegade. Two teams of up to 16 players each (depending on the map) pick from 12 classes, working to harvest Vilothyte (read: tiberium) while building up their base and production.
Players fan out across the map defending their harvesters, while working together to build structures that unlock new infantry classes, vehicles and more. The main differences here is that the visuals have gone for a cel-shaded look, a little akin to Borderlands without the comical overtones.
A new release trailer hasn’t dropped yet, but there’s a few servers in the US and Europe at the time of writing. The movement speed is super quick, and while the ping isn’t great, you can have a bit of fun if you just roll around in a tank or with a rocket launcher.
Here’s what the game actually looks like to play:
I’m fascinated that Petroglyph are building Earthbreakers. Hybrid RTS/FPS games have never done that well in the past, even though Renegade sold 250,000 copies back in the day. There was Natural Selection and Natural Selection 2, games which I loved but were known for having a thoroughly brutal upbringing (not to mention if you tried to play Commander for the first or second time).
If you want to give Earthbreakers a whirl, you can grab the demo right here. Earthbreakers is due out sometime this year.
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