CNCSaga.de: In the past 15 years, did the community and the brand Command & Conquer change since back then? What are your thoughts about this?
Frank Klepack: The community hasn't changed as much as it's remained a solid force of passionate people who love the games and love making their own takes on it. I think that really cool that they are going strong after so many years. As far as the brand goes, thats subjective. I thought C&C3 and RA3 still retained some of the gameplay and visual presentation that echoed what came before it, but C&C4 seems to be the most far removed of the whole series.

CNCSaga.de: Was it hard work to make your comeback in the community with Hell March 3? The fans were expecting much and you had to raise the bar you had set yourself.
Frank Klepack: No it wasn't hard - it was quite natural. The only major difference was, they wanted to stick close to the feel of HM2 rather than go in a different new feel, which is what I would've done otherwise. So I had to provide what the client wanted rather than have the creative freedoms I was used to. Which is fine. I think the best version of HM3 is the one I performed at Games In Concert 3. It sounds punchier when its live!

CNCSaga.de: What were your highlights with Command & Conquer in the last 15 years and what are the things you were happy about or what makes you a happy even today?
Frank Klepack: Highlights were making the first game and having a blast with no limitations. After Red Alert shipped, the outpouring of fans who loved the music was a big surprise to me, seeing Hell March become a hit. Winning the PC Gamer award for best soundtrack over Quake which was done by Trent Reznor was crazy, since that guy is one of my biggest influences of the time. Scoring msuic to James Earl Jones scenes in Tiberian Sun was awesome, since he's the voice of Darth Vader, and I'm a huge Star Wars fan. Recording my tracks for Red Alert 3 at Skywalker Ranch with the symphony was a great and exciting expereince. And of course the opportunity to perform these themes live with symphonies such as Video Games Live and Games In Concert is the icing on the cake!

Platform Online: The charismatic Joe Kucan is now a cult figure. Do you think C&C would be recognised as it is now if he wasn’t the face of the series?
Louis Castle: I think it’s very difficult to take anything as complex as a hit franchise and take out one element. People would say: “It wasn’t a success, except for (blank).” But I think you could say it might not have been a success if it didn’t have everything. So, I don’t know that C&C would have been what it was without Joe. Probably not, and maybe without the full motion video stuff it wouldn’t even have been successful as a game. Who knows? It’s very difficult to say. Clearly, it added something to it that I thought was very valuable. Based on what we saw with Generals as a franchise and Red Alert and C&C, the FMVs, the actors, they brought something to the game and to the story that I think was quite enchanting. Until such time that we can do games that look as good as Benjamin Button… and even then you’ll still need actors, but maybe you could go to full CG. But CG characters still feel pretty obviously non-human. So, yeah, I think he had a huge contribution and without him it wouldn’t be the same.

Platform Online:EA released C&C4 earlier this year as the final chapter to the Tiberium arc. How do you feel about the ending to C&C4?
Louis Castle: I think that the team they had doing it was a very talented team, they worked on a lot of the other C&C products. They were seriously resource constrained when it came to trying to make the product they wanted to make. I’m a little disappointed by the product at the end of the day. Not because the team didn’t do a good job with what they had, I just think it was under resourced to be the finale. I thought the story was interesting. It wasn’t the way we had originally envisioned it, but that’s OK. They were the ones who were in charge of the canon at that point, so it’s up to them to decide how it ends.