Command & Conquer 4 preemptively announced

This morning, the UK office of Electronic Arts posted a banner headline via its private Twitter feed, which is open only to members of the games press. The 105-character tweet speaks for itself: "EA_UK_PR New release: EA LOS ANGELES ANNOUNCES THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMAND & CONQUER 4 http://bit.ly/LOk6R." The compressed link, however, does not speak for anything, leading merely to the Electronic Arts press site where the most recent announcement is for the forthcoming Fight Night Round 4 downloadable content.

When contacted by GameSpot, EA reps declined to comment on the apparently preemptive tweet. However, the existence of C&C4 has been an open secret for weeks, following another apparent leak out of the UK. in June, British market research firm 2CV, which lists C&C publisher Electronic Arts among its clients, posted a customer survey that outlined the game in detail and featured a picture of C&C series villain Kane on the front underneath the EA logo.

The survey revealed that C&C4 will incorporate a class system akin to a role-playing game and "MMORPG-like player progression." The modes will be persistent in both the game's single-player and multiplayer modes, which include full campaign co-op and five-on-five competitive online play. The game will also apparently feature what the survey calls "the first mobile base in RTS games," the crawler.

For more details on all the C&C games leading up to C&C4, check out the video retrospective below.