The video-games industry raids its back catalogue

“COMMAND & CONQUER” chronicles a war between the Global Defence Initiative and a band of techno-terrorists called the Brotherhood of Nod. The video game was cutting-edge in 1995, when it was first released on a pair of compact discs. Their vast capacity (for the time) allowed a high-fidelity soundtrack and cheesy videos with human actors which advanced the plot between levels. Players could challenge their friends using a new-fangled technology called “the internet”. It got rave reviews and sold an estimated 3m copies.

That number will rise further when a revamped version called “Command & Conquer Remastered” is released on June 5th. It is the same as the old one in nearly every respect, except that the cartoonish 2D graphics of the original have received a high-resolution makeover.