Note: This will touch on online play but will not cover it, due to requiring third-party tools. There is a known balance issue with the single-player campaign that requires a fan patch fix, more on that in the review proper. This review is based on the latest versions of this title released only on Steam and EA Play.

There was a long drought of proper Tiberium universe games in the Command and Conquer franchise after Tiberian Sun: Firestorm. When Tiberium Wars was finally released in 2007, it remedied this, generally to the cheers of CNC and real-time strategy fans everywhere.

The story is set almost a decade and a half later from Firestorm. The infestation of Tiberium on the Earth has gotten worse with time. The world is now divided into Blue Zones (nigh pristine and populated by the healthy), Yellow Zones (heavily infested and where most of the poorer strata of society live), and Red Zones (uninhabitable death zones). The Global Defense Initiative has become the effective ruler of the world and is desperately trying to preserve as much of the Earth as possible while slowing and hopefully reversing the further spread of Tiberium. Meanwhile, their old foe, the Brotherhood of Nod, continues to draw support from the more scarred Yellow Zones, waiting for the day when they can finish off GDI for good in a Third Tiberium War.

Kane, the thought-departed founder of Nod returns, and with his help, Nod finally draws Earth into yet another war. Meanwhile, as GDI and Nod again slug it out in another world-spanning conflict, a threat beyond the stars promises both further danger and opportunity for both sides.

Like all prior games, there is a Nod and GDI campaign. The former involves helping Kane come out on top as the winner of the latest conflict. The latter involves helping GDI attempt to ensure Kane is cast down for a third time. In both campaigns, the classic real-time strategy that has defined the series returns once more. The player must build bases, deploy troops, capture key points, and accomplish missions on whatever side they picked to lead their forces to victory. The game also features a skirmish mode for fights against the computer and an online mode for engaging players around the world in battle.

A few new things have been added to streamline combat. Prior games had most infantry produced individually. Now, aside from specialized units like engineers, most infantry are produced in squads to ease production. Some concepts from the Generals titles like support powers and intermediate upgrades to existing units have been further refined, allowing even weaker units to maintain parity in late-game play.

Be advised, that single-player mode is practically impossible unless you get fan patches. For some insane reason, EA's latest patches put the multiplayer balance on the single-player, which severely lopsided the game in the AI's favor to an unreasonable degree. On the PCGamingWiki page for this game can be found links to several fan patches to rectify this.

Graphically, Tiberium Wars uses a much upgraded SAGE engine from the earlier Command & Conquer Generals games. Divided much like the game does, the Blue Zones of the world look all nice and futuristic, the Yellow Zones look like post-apocalyptic areas to some greater or lesser extent, and the lethal Red Zones as nigh sterile crystalline death zones incapable of supporting unaided mortal life. Tiberian Sun and Firestorm tended towards a lot of moonscape-like terrain and dark shades, and this game features far more interesting use of colors mated to full 3D models. On max settings, this game looks pretty incredible, still using a massively updated version of the SAGE engine that debuted in Command and Conquer Generals.

The music and sound effects deliver the CNC feel, though Frank Klepacki's classic soundtracks are not in evidence this time round. The stuff EA provides is still pretty good though, enough to set the mood for both sides, if not overly memorable. The live-action cutscenes the series is known for more than make up for this, as the actors (from Joe Kucan as Kane to Micheal Ironside as GDI General Jack Granger) really show their drama chops, and they even have guys like Billy Dee Williams (as GDI Director Redmond Boyle) doing some bombastic scenery chewing. The voiceovers in the games proper are also quite good and crisp, far better than the limited soundbank in the Tiberian Sun era.

Like the previous Tiberium Wars, this game requires a mouse and keyboard, though it will run on Steam Deck with minor hassles at best. The user interface is generally easy to learn and understand, with early levels doing a decent job of easing the player into the basics of the RTS game loop. A tutorial mode is also included to ease new players in. Game stability is pretty high, though I did notice it does have a once-off crash after resetting the quality settings (they start at the lowest settings the first time you start up the game), but subsequently, the game is okay on all later startups. That one weird bit aside, the game is fairly solid and runs well. It is rated Playable on Steam Deck and runs fairly well on Linux via Steam Proton.

Morally, there are some obvious issues with this title.

Violence is real-time strategy style, albeit devoid of explicit blood and gore, though cutscenes will show some blood, especially since you can play as Nod and they aren't averse to execution scenes. Nod also shows an utter disregard for civilians and commits war crimes on the regular as their stock in trade, including setting off in-universe WMDs. While you won't see anything too graphic, it's clear they have and will commit several slaughters of both military targets (GDI) and others.

Language is about mild Teen level. Some mild words like d*mn, h*ll, and a rare b**t**d. Sexuality is pretty nonexistent, most to all characters wear formal military outfits or are otherwise sensibly dressed.

This is set in a pretty hard sci-fi universe, but the Brotherhood of Nod is an in-universe cult dedicated to their Prophet Kane. Preaching pseudo-ascensional rhetoric, they are a full-blown religion (for all intents and purposes) that meets military/terrorist superpower. Like always, Kane is also implied to be the Biblical Cain, per series tradition. There is even one scene where Kane rather sarcastically reads of Lazarus being risen from the dead by Jesus from the Bible, in clear mocking reference to how he rose from what GDI considered his death.

Morally, this Nod side is one long villain's campaign, and you will have to do all sorts of war crimes for that side. GDI's campaign is generally far more ethical, though they do have some characters who are far from ethical paragons and you even get a choice to use a WMD of extreme moral issues that will have you look not better than Nod by proxy, with your refusal treated much more honorably.

Technically, this is a fairly sound game and a fun continuation of the Tiberium series I can recommend highly, at least once you mod the balance back to player-beatable levels for the singleplayer. Morally, it's got some issues, but nothing older teens on up could not reasonably handle. Given it sell dirt cheap as part of a bundle and is a perfectly fun game minus a few minor issues, I highly recommend it.