Battle for Middle Earth is barely on store shevles and the former Westwood Studios developers have already announced their next Project - a return to their original founding franchise ‘Red Alert’. Though they haven’t officially named the title an RTS sequel - we can only hope they don’t try to explore new “genres” (*cough* C&C Sole Survivor, Renegade).

This is definitely very exciting news - The Red Alert RTS franchise is known to kids as one of the more explosive in the genre. The first Red Alert was a spin off of Command & Conquer. Set in an alternative timeline - Russia simgs some time travel magic and captures Einstein, who gives them the bomb instead of the States. The cold war pretty much sucks for the US and soon a desperate WWIII breaks out in the 60’s. Red Alert 2 had the exact same theme except later along down the timeline.. this time Hitler was assinated before WWII broke out, and Russia seized control over Europe… eventually they decide the USA looks nice and try to take it, too. Bastards.

RA2 was Westwood LA’s first title. Then came “C&C Generals” which was Westwood Studios’s only saving grace after their unfortunately, but ginormous MMORPG flop “Earth and Beyond“. The Westwood LA offices were the only to survive Westwood backruptcy as they folded-over in to EA games’ new LA Studio.

Anyway, what made Red Alert 2 great, and IMHO what put the developers on the map, was that it restructured RTS multiplayer gameplay. Most multiplayer RTS games before RA (like Age of Empires) would take hours to finish just one match. With RA2, and Generals as well, the pace was ramped up. Matches finished in under an hour and everything felt a little more.. desperate and hectic - a massive arms race that culminated in a sudden over-the-top (but somehow survivable) superweapon strike.

When you’re beaten in a game of Generals, at least you go out in style

Also our very own Russell Miner wrote one of the more popular unit modification for Red Alert 2. He had some amazing number of downloads.. I think over a thousand It was one of _the_ mods if you know what I mean.

No news on when the title would be released. If they stick with a modified “Battle for Middle Earth” engine (which, in turn, is a modified Generals Engine) then we may see this title by Christmas of next year. If they start from scratch I’d suspect a Summer/Fall 2006 release.

Mm.. Red Alert.

Man, that Yuri is one ugly SOB