Best And Worst Video Game Story Retcons

[G-Max]

Worst: EA eliminating Red Alert 1 from the Tiberian Timeline in the Command & Conquer franchise.

Best: EA reestablishing Red Alert 1 as part of the Tiberian Timeline.

I don't recall RA1 ever being divorced from the Tiberium continuity. Rather, I think the official position was that the Allied ending in RA1 led to RA2, and the Soviet ending in RA1 led to Dawn. Either way, that's not the worst retcon in even C&C history, much less the history of gaming as a whole. Dawn dropped a few hints that Tiberium was merely the beginning of a Tiberium-based ecosystem, with its Tiberium Trees and Visceroids. This ecosystem was dramatically expanded in Sun and brought into full glory in Firestorm, with blue tiberium, tiberium weed and weedhole monsters, shard-launching tiberium doggies, floaters, that strange moss/algae-type stuff that covers both land and water, all kinds of new mutated trees, etc... and then in Wars, all of that stuff was GONE. They changed the composition of tiberium, too, from 42.5% phosphorus, 32.5% iron, blah blah blah, some some "dynamic proton lattice" bullcrap.

 

[Commodore]

I don't recall RA1 ever being divorced from the Tiberium continuity. Rather, I think the official position was that the Allied ending in RA1 led to RA2, and the Soviet ending in RA1 led to Dawn. Either way, that's not the worst retcon in even C&C history, much less the history of gaming as a whole. Dawn dropped a few hints that Tiberium was merely the beginning of a Tiberium-based ecosystem, with its Tiberium Trees and Visceroids. This ecosystem was dramatically expanded in Sun and brought into full glory in Firestorm, with blue tiberium, tiberium weed and weedhole monsters, shard-launching tiberium doggies, floaters, that strange moss/algae-type stuff that covers both land and water, all kinds of new mutated trees, etc... and then in Wars, all of that stuff was GONE. They changed the composition of tiberium, too, from 42.5% phosphorus, 32.5% iron, blah blah blah, some some "dynamic proton lattice" bullcrap.

Actually if you go to EVA Database (the wiki for C&C) they state that the Allied ending to RA1 leads to both RA2 and Tiberian Dawn. This makes the Soviet ending completely non-canon. This stance does create some confusion though since if you go on that, then the exact point where the Tiberian Universe and the Red Alert Universe split becomes very unclear. To make matters even more confusing RA2 was supposed to be part of the Tiberian Universe as well, and Westwood was planning C&C Renegade 2 which would have connected the RA universe with the Tiberian Universe. This was cancelled and it was decided to divorce RA2 from the Tiberian Universe forever. That kinda sucks because if they had kept them together, then we would have had an explaination of the origins of Yuri. In the C&C3 that Westwood was planning, Yuri was supposed to be a super-soldier project created by Kane. Well during a battle for Area 51, Nod forces stumble on some old Allied Chronosphere tecnology and accidentally activate it. This sends Yuri back in time to just after the first war between the Allies and Soviets where he becomes a trusted advisor to Romanov and creates the Psychic Corps.

EA also did try to divorce the two, but it met with such a negative reaction from the fanbase that EA brought them back together when they releases a "criminal dossier" on Kane. And yeah, what they did with the "biology" of Tiberium was pretty lame too.