'Command and Conquer: Generals 2' Release Date: Is EA Allowing This Well-Known Gaming Franchise to Die?

By Mark Rollins
Command and Conquer: Generals 2
Will Command and Conquer: Generals 2 ever come out?

Command and Conquer has a long history.  It began as far back as 1995, and the game was a real-time strategy game that was a first of its type by Westwood Studios.  From there, many Command and Conquer games were released, but the big news that a lot of long-time fans have been asking is when Command and Conquer: Generals 2 will have its release date, if at all. 

Westwood Studios, creator of the mammoth gaming franchise, is no more thanks to EA Los Angeles buying them out in 2003.  It was in that year when the Command and Conquer: Generals was released, and it was not related to other games in the series.  This game was set in the near future with the United States, China, and a fictional terrorist organization known as the Global Liberation Army.  The game was quite a hit and had an expansion known as Zero Hour. 

Electronic Arts posted in 2011 that the next game in the series would be Command and Conquer Generals 2, but development of this game was cancelled in 2013, according to IGN.  It was going to be a free-to-play game known as just Command and Conquer, but EA has stated that the franchise will continue. 

According to PC Invasion, it doesn't look like the Command and Conquer franchise is going to resume at any time soon.  However, if EA is smart, they will not let this franchise just die, even though the last game in the series was Command and Conquer: Tiberium Alliances, released back in 2012. 

The video game world is full of franchises that continue to make a lot of money for video game companies.  Gaming franchises such as Gears of War, Call of Duty, Halo, and the like are always going to have a following, and I would think that Command and Conquer probably has a following of fans who are still saying "remember when" when it comes to this RTS gaming franchise. 

It sounds like Command and Conquer: Generals 2 was going to be changed in order to refresh the franchise.  It's kind of how certain movie sequels just change their name to something plain like Star Trek (a complete reboot of the TV series) and Fast and Furious (technically the fourth in the movie series franchise).  It is possible that that EA was trying to make Command and Conquer for a new generation of gamers, and they even had an alpha for this game. 

It should be known that Command and Conquer: Generals 2 still has a place on Gamespot, with the words "Unknown Release Date" below it.  Something tells me that this is one big placeholder, waiting for the day when EA finally announces that Command and Conquer is returning. 

If EA was going to make such an announcement this year, then they probably would have done that at E3 2015.  E3, or the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is a big electronic gaming convention held annually in June at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  The good news is that EA can probably play that "we're rebooting or simply releasing another Command and Conquer game" card at any time, and they will have devoted followers.