Red Alert 3 features a fully co-operative campaign mode where the player can team up with another player, or one of several AI characters such as Major Giles, a stiff upper lip British commander, to complete the campaign. The game has been promised to retain both the style and action-oriented gameplay of the Red Alert series, and the fast-paced gameplay of the latest C&C titles.[8]
The first Red Alert revolved around an alternate World War II between the Allies (including Germany) and the Soviet Union, with some high-tech esoterica, such as GPS, weaponized tesla coils, force fields and limited time travel. Red Alert 2 featured a Soviet invasion of USA with tanks, conscripts, gargantuan airships and psychically dominated anti-ship giant squid; its expansion, Yuri's Revenge, escalated matters up to UFOs and communists on the Moon. Executive producer of Red Alert 3, Chris Corry, has confirmed[9] that the game will further differentiate the playable factions from each other and "[play] up the silliness in their faction design whenever possible". The Soviets and Allies have a mix of old and new units and technologies. New Soviet units include armoured attack bears, Tesla boats known as "Stingrays" that can also travel on land, making them a replacement for the Tesla Tank, anti-infantry spider-like tanks called "Sickles" that have the ability to jump over terrain elevations and an amphibious transport unit called the "Bullfrog" that evacuates its passengers using a large "man cannon". The Allies receive a new Tanya unit that is equipped with a "time belt", allowing her to transport herself to the past in order to regain health, and "Cryocopters", unarmed helicopters equipped with powerful freeze and shrink rays. The Empire of the Rising Sun has giant transforming mecha, ninjas, a psychic schoolgirl and submersible planes.
Secondary abilities are to be common to each and every unit in the game, although how each ability is employed may vary slightly between units; some may be toggled on and off, others may apply instantly and some may have a cooldown, requiring a period of time to pass before the ability can be activated again. [10]
Naval warfare is still present. Corry has stated many units are now amphibious, trading effectiveness for increased flexibility compared to ground-only units. In addition, the unit called MCV featured in almost every Command & Conquer RTS, is now able to move and deploy on water; this makes placing buildings on bodies of water (excluding barracks and war factories) possible[11] and players who "ignore the ocean [are] likely forfeiting a significant part of their potential economy to their opponents". Further stressing this is the fact that, despite some campaign maps being entirely land based, all multiplayer maps will have significant bodies of water in them.
Full motion videos featuring real-life actors will be featured in the campaign mode. Filming has begun since the scheduled date of April 2008.
