Finding out about Red Alert 2 having its expansion pack back in 2001 was a big deal for me. It was a time when access to the internet for me in my country was limited and the press wasn't all that keen on keeping up with the announcement so it wasn't until I checked price tags for various games in one of the PC gaming shops that I learned of Yuri's Revenge existence. By chance I had the opportunity to enter a well-equipped shop a few days after and I found a copy of it on the shelf.
When I put my hands on the Yuri's Revenge mission disc back then I realized I still had a day or two before I'd actually be able to install the game and play the thing since the shop wasn't at my hometown but in one of the bigger cities in the country. I spent some time carefully reading the manual included with the game, all translated in a weird way with some of the unit names localized in a hilarious way ("Czołg Rębajło"). Right after I was done reading I took a piece of paper and thought I'd come up with a faction of my own, inspired by the addition of Yuri's side to the game. You don't want to know what kind of a faction idea it was though. Well, maybe you do but I'm not telling, it was that silly.
This goes back further to when I was a Command & Conquer player. With the battle between GDI and Nod going on, I had the idea of introducing new sides with weird-sounding acronym-ish names like FIX or ZAP, the first having a tornado on a diamond as its logo, a grey/purple color scheme and air manipulation technology, while the second one's logo was WinAmp and was all about electricity and lightning, obviously. I had weird ideas as a kid but that was long before I even tried modding. Later on there was also a stage when I almost added Axis as a new side to Mental Omega 2.0.
Now, the 4th side is actually happening. My first idea for the game is taking shape.
Behind the #ControlMOre hashtag hides this new and large part of the project - a fully functional new side with its own subfactions, units, heroes and superweapons. Its own bases, airforce, navy, Engineers (surprise!), soundtrack and story. Your choice of arsenal grows from the 9 subfactions you are already familiar with to 12. While Mental Omega may not be the first to add a new side, it'll be done in a way you probably haven't seen before in Yuri's Revenge modding, for a simple reason - it will actually be done and released. For you.
The introduction of the new side will shine a different light on what you might have expected from Act Two so expect surprises in the campaign. I have seen that you are already trying to figure out the fourth faction's identity and origins, something that has already been hinted in Act One since the idea has always been there. Popular guesses so far have been: Aliens, Atlantis, "side from a different dimension", GDI/Nod, FutureTech beta, GDI or Nod. For some reason some of these always come up when there's discussion about adding potential new factions to Red Alert 2, I wonder why?
As we continue working on Mental Omega, we will reveal the features of Side 4 bit by bit.
Stay tuned for MOre MOnday News Bulletins and pre-release streams to follow.
If you want to post your ideas or share what you'd like to see for side 4, you can do it in this thread.
Edited by Speeder, 05 July 2015 - 02:44 PM.