Last week we learned that Command & Conquer: Rivals would be launching worldwide on December 4th, which is today. Lo and behold EA has stuck to the release date as the game is now available for download from the Play Store. It's billed as a fast-paced real-time strategy game, but really it's just a Clash Royale clone with a C&C skin.

If you were hoping for something that plays like the original games, you are sadly out of luck. Command & Conquer: Rivals plays a lot closer to titles like Clash Royale. It's a mobile PvP release with a Command & Conquer skin slapped on top. Now I know this may aggravate more than a few of you out there, but in 2018 it's clear that companies like EA aren't going to consider hardcore fans when it comes down to it and would rather cash in with a shallow pay-to-win mobile game. Something I'm sure EA's AAA peers Bethesda, Valve, and Blizzard also know a heck of a lot about.

Getting down to the nitty-gritty, you can expect 1v1 real-time battles, a collectible card system, loot crates complete with wait timers, multiple in-game currencies, and in-app purchases that range all the way up to $99.99 per item. The actual gameplay is basically a tug of war between two people as they strategically send out similar troops to key focal points on a battlefield. Whoever can utilize whatever little rock-paper-scissors mechanics there are in this game may just gain the upper hand and win the match. More often than not those that pay for better troops will have the advantage, just like every other mobile game of this nature. Suffice to say, the gameplay gets stale very quickly, especially if you've played similar titles before.

Honestly, I'm not even shocked by EA's brazenness with this release. Not only is the company tarnishing a fan-favorite series, but it's doing it in such a way that it dumbs down everything that made the originals so great. There's also a clear pay-to-win structure in this competitive game, and even if you could ignore the monetized cheating, the loot crates, collectible cards, and tedious tug of war gameplay add up to yet another mobile game that does very little to differentiate itself from the majority of Clash Royale clones already on the Play Store. Command & Conquer: Rivals bears no resemblance to the C&C games you fondly remember, it's an endlessly monetized platform of greed wearing a shoddily put together Command & Conquer skin.

PRESS RELEASE