There was a time before The Reticule was born when I tried my hand at running a Command and Conquer fansite, it was called cncnation.net and last a couple of years, at least until my enthusiasm for the series was destroyed by the falling standards of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Red Alert 3. But I was always fascinated by the dedicated modding communities that were out there, and one of the biggest is nearing final release.

Renegade X, originally planned as a remake of Command and Conquer: Renegade has evolved over time into a spiritual successor to the only first-person Command and Conquer game. Developed using Unreal Engine 3 by a team of fans from around the world, Renegade X pits 40-players in a battle between the Brotherhood of NOD and the GDI in a war to destroy the enemy base, all the while trying to manage your economy or call down ION Cannon strike or launch a few nukes.

The team behind Renegade X have recently launched Beta 5, their last major step before releasing the final 1.0 version. The major, eye-catching additions in this latest build are the inclusion of some of the most famous units from Tiberian Sun as you will now be able to jump into some of the brilliant walker units such as the Titan and Wolverine, and not to forget the Hover MLRS has also been added. While I was always more a fan of Red Alert 2 than any of the other games in the series, it is awesome to see these legendary units re-imagined in Renegade X.

If you want to check out this special take on the Command and Conquer world, head over to this page to find links to the multiplayer client along with the SDK.

Now, if you would leave me a moment to remember one of my early journeys into games writing….