Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars™

Slight ache in the sack to get working but a minor fix. Quality game

This game will always have a place in my heart ever since I started playing it on my dad's laptop and having the CD version of it. The campaign is great and I enjoy playing the skirmish mode from time to time. Just some casual action simulation fun! It is a 10/10 for me.

It’s an amazing game, and it still has nice graphics despite its age.

The mid 2000s were a dark time for the old-school fans of the Command&Conquer franchise. The takeover of the franchise by E.A. fueled a lot of anxiety in a lot of people. 2001 they released C&C Renegade, a FPS, and then Generals, a Blizzard-style RTS wearing the skin of C&C. Was the era of the Westwood-flavored strategy game over for good?

Well, 2007's Tiberium Wars would prove these fears to be unjustified, at least for the time being. C&C3 is largely a return to the old ways. Construction yards are back, so are regrowing ressource fields. And the story line would continue the old Tiberian saga that started with C&C1.
What it didn't bring back, however, was all the jank those old games suffered from. Unit responsiveness is improved across the board. Gone are the days of unit pathfinding problems and long harvester queues in front of the refineries.
Unit controls are generally are mayor strength of this game, the best I have ever seen in the RTS space. The iconic C&C sidebar that let you build new units even while in active combat was always a main strength of the series but now you can use it to select units as well. Just hit Q, then simply pick them from the list that replaces the build menu, without having to sift thorugh the mass of ingame units. Very smooth!

The main attraction, however, is its impressive single player mode. The longest I have ever seen, 38 missions without any obvious fillers. Most of them have optional side objectives that are sometimes quite challenging to complete and reward you with world building snippets. The cutscenes have very high production value and the the writing and acting is just stellar.
The two primary campaigns are split in two parts, the first one taking after C&C1 in term of style and mission design and the second part, dealing mostly with the alien invasion, being something a tonal departure. The good writing, however, makes both of them cohere into a satifying whole. As a returning C&C fan I especially enjoyed the connections to the series' greater scope plot, with some events even helping some of the weirder wiriting decisions in the older games make more sense in retrospect, like the world altering mission in Tiberian Sun.

So all in all I consider this game the absolute high point of Command&Conquer history. Unfortunely it also ended up being something of a last hurrah for the series, as shortly after it died a fiery death with C&C4.
If you are looking to get into C&C now, however, there is no better entry point than this, as it offers the perfect compromise between the characteristic C&C gameplay and modern UI conveniences.

game corrupt's itself with this version of c&c after a few days

They've dropped all support for the game. They're selling it for pennies, when it should just be de-listed from the store. Maps just break the game when trying to load them. Campaign is imbalanced and extremely lame, skirmish doesn't work, online is crap. Don't give EA a penny for this crap game. It sucked then, and it's not even hardly a game anymore. Just a junk file taking up space on my hard drive.

Steam needs half of EA's library removed from this platform.

One of the best RTSs ever made, only worse than Kane's Wrath the expansion because it just improved on nearly everything in this game. Not been another RTS like this since. Fantastic campaign, multiplayer and skirmish vs AI.

the unit pathing and ai almost made me **** myself during the hard campaign especially on some of the no build missions 10/10 would reccommend

It may not be as awesome or influential as the earlier Westwood C&C games, but C&C3 was in 2007 a nice jumpstart to the RTS genre, and has ended up being maybe among the best RTSs of the 21st century. I recommend it, it's a fun time with AA casting and FMV production, a handsome and serviceable 3D engine (but occasionally wonky AI & pathfinding), and overall great balance and fun. Deserved a greater sequel.

The game was patched so hard that the campaign became unplayable even on easy.
take the early nod camaign for examlpe, in the Washington mission ur expected to dish out 5k on an MCV because the crane you start with can't build base defenses, and u'll need them since GDI will hunt you down.. on easy.

This was not an issue when i completed the game as a kid.
So unless the game gets another patch, TW should be awoided.

Not only one of the best C&C games but also one of the best RTS games ever. Install CnC-Online and have fun.

It was only in 2024 that I was able to play C&C Tiberium Wars again. It brought back many gaming memories. I can still feel the thrill and excitement. I'm gonna teach my kids how to play this when they grow older. Keep this game alive!

It's like Highschool all over again! Love it!

And I still suck at it!

Honestly though, I had forgotten how good this title was. I still prefer TibSun, but this is smooth, and a lot of fun.

What fun man. The atmosphere and the iconic cutscenes and the ridiculous amusing units. I wish C&C had a better publisher

Tiberium Wars plays surprisingly well in 2025. You will need to tweak the settings but overall I have no complaints. I hope EA releases the source code for this game too.. I'd love to update the camera so it zoomed further out.

Imo grab the CC series on sale.

One of the last best C&C games. Now waiting for its revival. A solid, brand new revival in Tiberian Sun franchise. Let's hope EA does something good like giving out a new trailer for C&C like they did with release of the source code. EA did not release Tiberian Sun and Firestorm source codes. So finger crossed for a remake or remaster perhaps?

CD Version is better. The update they put out for this nerfs you to oblivion in the campaign and gives the AI unlimited resources.

I loved this game, I know it's flawed and not as creative as the older titles but i think the graphics are cool and come back to this game for some east RTS chill playing

EA has disappointed for many reasons in recent years, however they have done one thing that is insanely good for gaming. GPL License sharing of the complete source code of many C&C games!

This deserves unlimited praise, if you haven't yet purchased this on Steam (maybe like me you had an original CD back in the day), please do to support this action by them!

Hopefully they do for Tiberium Wars soon too :)

great game but bit of a shame that EA got lazy and cut loads from this game that was in tiberian sun things like the life forms and that tiberian can spread across thhe hole map but cant in this one

When games were fun, developers you could tell where excited to develop, gamers actually enjoyed playing the games...
Minus the fact that those where the days BEFORE internet.... yes a world existed way before the WEB became main stream.... i miss those days

in some misions easy is way to hard , almost imposible

I hope they develope the modding community further so modders can bring their content to workshop completely. And i hope they do essential improvements and revisions to the base game, even strictly to generals, then these games may become completely stable when playing mods.

The game updated itself and now:
"Failed the initialize Steam! The game will now exit"

Game ran great as recently as yesterday.

Now fails with an error "Failed to Initialize Steam. Please start steam first, and then verify game installation."

I have tried verifying files and re-installing without improvement

it holds true to c&c, the scrin is awesome addition i would say equal to or slightly better than zero hour

pace of the game is really wacky, always on the rush, not my style

peak!
its sad that EA doesn't care about this masterpiece and they made a garbage sequel to make it a competitive game to attract new players and make a fortune out of it.
9/10

I have always loved this game. Truthfully one of the last greats before EA ruined the property beyond repair. If you played Tiberian Sun this sequel is great and for a perfect experience add the Tiberian Essence Mod.

Game validated by the Holy Ordos, free from the stain of heresy.

I've never been more dissuaded from playing a game due to dog shit keybind logic than this. To move K to F you first need to move F to somewhere else, except the somewhere else you're trying to move it to is already occupied too, so actually the first step is to move that key you're only moving to make room for another key to somewhere else. After ripping out 25% of your hair you've finally moved 1 key. It's time to redo this all over again until you decide to end your life right then and there. The real difficulty was the lives we tried to preserve rebinding the keys along the way.

I only wanted to play this one for nostalgia BUT it was bundled with the whole franchise , great surprise.

It's old...and it kinda shows.
The graphics hold up decently and in my opinion, it's one of the last good RTS games.
The RTS genre as we know it, died with this game and SC 2.

PS: If you see this review and know an RTS of this style, please recommend.

Still the best online multiplayer strategy game and its 2025. Surprised no one else came out with similar.

It feels harder than the console version, but it adds more sense of urgency than what I got there. Plus it adds a lot of features that weren't in the console version. makes it feel more technical, more fulfilling.

I completed this back in the early days of this game and had it on DVDs. Got the steam version much later.
It is a great game, and the last of the real RTS C&C games before EA destroyed the franchise and defiled westwood's grave.

Enjoy this and the games before it, and don't even take a look at what came after or you'll be sorely disappointed.

Incredible game, the missions are fantastic. Skirmish is challenging but rewarding. The C&C experience through and through. 5 stars

Not enough maps, and no instructions on how to install available extra maps.

pretty fun RTS, i havent touched multiplayer, only the campaign, but its very fun and the missions are varied, tough the difficulty curve is very weird, or maybe it feels harder because i insist on playing this on my steam deck

Back when game devs enjoyed making their games and valued their creation instead of seeing it as nothing more than a cash cow. I havent even played this one when it came out as I was taking a long break from gaming at the time, and yet the production value, the polish and overall quality of the game is extremely refreshing compared even to recent releases, and even with its 30 fps cap it still sucks me in like very few recent rts games do.

The last great game of a legendary series (Kane's Wrath counts as part of this). It's really sad that absolutely no sequel was ever created whatsoever.

Mods like Tiberium Essence are highly recommended, especially if you dislike the look of many of the units in the base game. Seriously, what the hell is up with that Scorpion Tank?

one of the best RTS out there the campaign is very good and balanced the gameplay is really good as well i have played the expension (Kanes Warth ) and has even more sub factions units and upgrades . this version still holds very well

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is an exceptional RTS that delivers a thrilling and memorable experience. Its engaging campaign, competitive multiplayer, and innovative game play make it a must-play for fans of the genre.

I abolutely love this title. The amount of hours when i was young, the literal enjoyiment i still have today and now even with the new mod Tiberium Essence, that keep this game pure perfection, find someone who wants to join ur coop-skirmish and obliterate ur foes. Command and Conquer.

When I first played it as a kid on my dad's computer, I always thought that GDI was a past, NOD is a future, and SCRIN is just the insect. Now I think SCRIN is a conqueror, NOD is a liberator, and GDI is a state-owned company.

This was my first introduction to the main Command And Conquer games and I instantly fell in love with it. The game was dark, serious, and badass, I liked how even if my attack failed I was able to get another assault going in about three minutes and wasn't a game over if I lost the first fight.

good game but it does not work anymore for me. ive done everything i can like clear my steam casch or installing what ever the fuck dierct.x is. i uninstalled the game hopeing to reinstall it but apparetnly i can't because its missing file permissions. please help me this game is super fun to play and i want to play it again.

best C&C Tiberium series
got it back in Christmas of 07 played for ages, still good Ai needs to be better

Ive played 5 hours, last level is unplayable even on easy settings. Not like westwood game at all. it's harder to control units, and harvesters are too weak. game pace is : just make a lot of units and roll over them, no strategies required

“All I can ask is for you to do the right thing commander. Just... do the right thing.”
~Director Boyle

At the end of 2000s, EA destroyed pretty much everything there was about Command & Conquer. It was almost like they were on a mission or something. They've shut down Westwood, they've canceled their Tiberian Twilight (AKA C&C3: Incursion, a direct sequel to Tiberian Sun) and even after the franchise was given to other people under their wing, they didn't stop. Sure, what Mark Skaggs and his team did in C&C Generals was anything but C&C we all used to know, but it was still a solid project. Yet EA scrapped the sequel, turned it into an f2p game and then, after literally everybody hated the idea, canceled the whole thing for good. End of the story. Which left EA in a very Finding Nemo situation. Remember that “Now what?” scene? Well, that's pretty much what happened to EA. They've wasted quite a lot of money, yet they ended up with nothing. Original makers were no more, the old series was dead and the “reboot” canceled. It was time for them to stop for a moment and actually think 'bout what to do next. Guess what? They actually did that for a change. Think.

While Generals game was praised by many for its gameplay, many others refused to accept it for being too different from the original series and not following the original story / canon. Decision #1: a new game in the series is going to go back to the roots. In other words, EA was about to revive Westwood's C&C3. Westwood already had lots of plans for their sequel, like that alien race called Scrin (we've already seen their ships in the TS and the Renegade) so naturally, we've got that. Still, just pretending that Generals never happened would have feel like going back to the stone age. Therefore, decision #2: a new game, while going old school, will keep lots of the elements from Generals.

There was a problem, though. Westwood's C&C3 was supposed to be the end of the road. Remember how Tiberium was slowly taking over the planet in the TS? The Incursion was supposed to be the end of that story, but W3D engine (renamed to SAGE by EA after they were done with Westwood) didn't support the Tiberium growth. Decision #3: to keep as many people who worked with games on SAGE before (Generals, Battle for Middle Earth). They'll figure something out. Don't let them do their way with the cutscenes, though. Nobody liked what they did with those and pretty much every review went hard on Generals for that. So, decision #4: let's make some old-school cutscenes, but make them expensive like never before to avoid cheesiness. Finally. Multiplayer. Nobody liked Westwood Online service. Everybody loved GameSpy in Generals. Decision #5: to make multiplayer based on GameSpy service and push into that territory as hard as possible. That's it. That was the idea. And after that? After that it was all up to EA Los Angeles (former LA division of DreamWorks Interactive), which finally became somewhat stable after all the acquisition chaos. Well. Ladies, gentlemen, everybody else, please welcome, Tiberium Wars.

The first thing I've noticed back in the days was how similar it was to Incursion. Not content-wise (I'll return to that later), but visually. Not like we had lots of pictures from Westwood's canceled game, but still, judging by what we did have, TW was exactly that. It looked like what old-school fans waited for the whole time, the original concepts were still recognizable, etc. It felt good. Really good. Sure, lots of the original ideas were scrapped (originally, Westwood planned four playable factions – GDI, Nod, CABAL and Scrin, while Tiberium Wars only has two – good ol' GDI and Nod with tiny four missions long bonus campaign for Scrin, which you unlock by beating both others), but still, it was way better than nothing.

And you know what? Seeing the old gameplay to return felt good too. Not because it was old, obviously, everything needs to evolve, but because it felt... C&C. If you know what I mean. Generals? If something, it felt more like something from BLIZZARD. No Dune-like harvesters, builder units that can build anywhere on the map... Tiberium Wars? It brought all the familiar stuff back. We're building with our yards again, we can't build too far away from our buildings, harvesters are back... In other words, it is C&C. Which, again, doesn't mean it forgot about Generals. There'll be those points we'll be able to capture for bonus income, the abilities, while not revolving around experience anymore, are still kinda presented in a way (they've kinda combined those with those powerful attacks from the original C&C), etc. Also, they didn't forget about Red Alert 2. Not only infantry will be able to occupy the civilian buildings, we'll also get real places like the White House and the Buckingham Palace. Lots of bonus objectives were added too, which adds to replayability.

Unfortunately, the new guys? They didn't really figure anything out about the Tiberium. And as the result? The whole idea got scrapped. Which was a huge mistake. Why? Well, because it makes things... weird. Instead of a sequel, C&C3 feels more like a remake of the Tiberian Sun. Something that takes place in the alternative universe, in which nothing from it happened. And you know what? The story only makes things worse. Remember Kane having an injured face after his temple was destroyed at the end of the very first game? Well, he's all healthy now. Why? I dunno. Technically, there was a strong hint at the end of TS' expansion to suggest he's a clone now, but nothing like that is told officially here. Instead, we've got a bunch of boring talks and copy/pasted stuff from previous games. Blah-blah-blah GDI needs to protect the planet, blah-blah-blah Kane shoots traitors (remember Seth? There's a female version of him now)... Boring. Hollywood cast helps, though. There's Billy Dee Williams from Star Wars and Batman, there's Michael Ironside from Top Gun, there's Jennifer Morrison from House... Heck, GDI campaign even has two different endings! Still, boring story is boring. And the fact that it ends with the cliffhanger only makes things worse.

They did try with the multiplayer, though. They really did. Heck, they tried to turn C&C3 into sport by introducing us to so-called BattleCast. A service that used to let us schedule games and watch them like our usual sport broadcasts. Note the “used to” part, though, because obviously, multiplayer here is long gone too. That's just what EA does. They make online-oriented games and then quickly shut the services down. Just because.

Still, C&C3 was a thing. Was it perfect? No. Aside from boring story, I could mention things like speed settings being gone for good (which was one of my biggest complaints about Generals, I just can't enjoy RTS games when they're too slow, and C&C3 sure is too) and some campaign missions that didn't give us enough freedom and as the result felt more like a puzzle with only one correct solution. But it was a thing. Finally, after taking over, EA established a solid new place for the series. They did something right for a change. C&C3 was like a new start. A thing to make us believe that future was bright. Was it, though? Well, that's the story for another day.