Australia loves Command & Conquer. Our love for Command & Conquer is so huge that a recent re-release overtook the top 10 Australian sales charts.
As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago we brought you a story about how EA was re-releasing the complete Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection on Steam, with a number of key updates. Well, apparently it did very well for them.
As reported by IGEA, which gets its numbers from international sales tracker Game Sales Data, a whopping eight of the top 10 games sold in Australia in the period March 4-March 10, 2024 were Command & Conquer titles. Only two other titles managed to make it into the list — Helldivers 2, which held onto its #1 spot for yet another week, and new release WWE 2K24. Here’s the full list:
- Helldivers 2
- C&C Generals: Deluxe Edition
- C&C 4: Tiberian Twilight
- WWE 2K24
- C&C Red Alert 3: Uprising
- C&C Red Alert 2
- C&C Tiberian Sun
- C&C Renegade
- C&C Red Alert
- Command & Conquer
It was a similar story in New Zealand, with WWE 2K24 dropping to fifth place behind Red Alert 3.
I’m sure 2K is thrilled to see WWE 2K24 getting thrashed at launch by a pair of games that are 21 and 14 years old, respectively.
The Command & Conquer Ultimate Edition re-release was a bit of a moment for the long-dormant series. It finally brought the full collection to Steam, and away from EA’s first-party launcher, for one thing. It also updated each game for better stability with modern operating systems and added a number of long-awaited, much-requested features like map editors and quality-of-life fixes.
The collection also briefly got into some hot water on social after it was revealed the wave of C&C titles had bumped several smaller, new games off the Steam new releases page without warning.
Even if these sales charts constitute a one week blip on the data sheet and we go back Call of Duty and GTA 5 again next week, there’s a lot for EA to think about here. There’s clearly still a lot of nostalgia and interest tied up in this series. Will it lead to something new? Who knows. EA says it’s looking to retreat to owned-and-operated IP, and it certainly owns this one. Maybe there’s life in this franchise after all.
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