Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance Preview

E for All 2007 Preview

Earlier this year, THQ released Supreme Commander, a sci-fi RTS exclusively for the PC. The game was a critical success, cementing THQ as one of the great strategy publishers out there. Now, not even a year after the game’s release, THQ is readying a standalone expansion for the game. Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance will offer new storyline details and new units for fans of the original game, though it won’t require the original game to play. Fans looking for another Supreme Commander fix would do well to keep an eye out for this one.

In Forged Alliance, a new alien threat has appeared on Earth, requiring the warring factions to band together to take them on. The Seraphim, as they are called, are hell-bent on destroying all of humanity and forcing the UEF and Cybron Nation to band together in an uneasy alliance to save the planet.

There have been a few functional improvements made to the game, as the interface has been greatly improved to be more streamlined and accessible. There will be many new units for every single faction, with a total of around 110 new units overall, as well as 13 new maps.

While the expansion doesn’t require the original game to play either on or offline, you’ll need both to get the full benefit of online play. The Seraphim race will be unlocked if you own the expansion but not the original, while owning both will give you all races in multiplayer.

Graphically, the game boasts some great improvements, with much higher poly counts in the units that the previous game. The effects have also been cleaned up quite a bit, making the game look quite a bit better than the original Supreme Commander.

Forged Alliance offers intense action and some tweaks and improvements that will make it a worthy follow-up to the well-received original game. Fans of Supreme Commander will definitely want to check this one out when it ships next month.