Early Look Demo Shows ‘Earthbreakers’ Fills CnC: Renegade’s Shoes

In mid-June I received an email from Petroglyph Games about a game they currently have in development. That game is Earthbreakers and it is conceptually a deathmatch game in the first person perspective. Petroglyph Games, which is known for such games as Grey Goo, made a point to mention that Earthbreakers would be a spiritual successor to Command and Conquer: Renegade. Petroglyph has a lot of alumni of the former Westwood Studios and the development of Earthbreakers very much reflects that those alumni also worked on Renegade, just based on what I experienced in the demo.

Renegade was its own quirky game that had you playing as a soldier from the ground perspective and all the RTS units, buildings and vehicles from the Tiberium series RTS were worked into the game. It was an OK game for its time and the multiplayer was something that had reached cult-like status with the fans.The objective to win Renegade required the enemy base to be leveled. Just like in the RTS when a building is destroyed then whatever units/upgrades it provided also were gone but unlike the RTS once gone they could not be replaced. A lot of the end game of each map consisted of trying to keep the enemy from destroying your refinery, your harvesters or your vehicle bases while also building up a bunch of end game vehicles to rush the enemy base and flatten it. This at its very core is what Petroglyph Games aims to bring back.

The demo was very bare bones with just enough there to show you that Renegade vibe. It had an interesting cel-shaded look to it which I enjoy when done in moderation to the overall look. Terminals dotted the area where you could do upgrades or build structures like the refinery, walls to defend the base and turrets of different types. Interestingly enough the barracks and garage had expanded upgrades to boost life, fire rates and such which I thought was a nice touch to the gameplay mechanic and would help with those pesky endgame pushes.

I understand that the demo itself was still in its raw form so I hope they work on the floaty movement and tweaking the weapons and such. I attempted to use the different weapons and some of them felt off in terms of range/impact on other players. The sniper rifle firing animation was off and the bullet seemed to come from over my head rather than from the barrel of the gun which really threw me off. The level design did mimic a lot of the original Renegade maps with all of its infantry paths through areas that often funneled people between the two bases. I do hope however that not all the maps following the Renegade design as a spiritual successor to such a fun game should use the design to not just copy but expand and develop more designs and such. I wouldn’t mind some bigger maps with more room for tanks to move around and fight or even aircraft to fly over and bomb or dog fight.

Also I do hope they embrace the mod community and provide a solid dev kit for modders to go in and make their own maps. One thing that really kept CnC: Renegade alive was the modders and their strong communication with Westwood that allowed them to build the type of mods/maps that players enjoyed. Earthbreakers does not have a solid release date just yet as it’s only listed as being released in 2020. I look forward to getting the full game on release and providing a more in-depth review.