GamesRadar: What about GDI and Nod... how have they changed from the last time we saw them?

MV: We've tried to add nuance to the factions. Nod in the original C&C games was pretty well defined in terms of its identity - they were "the bad guys." Kane was a bad guy, he surrounded himself with bad guys and they were unambiguously bent on doing evil. For C&C 3, we've tried to make that organization more sympathetic. After all, they are recruiting millions and millions of members into Nod. To understand why their cause would be appealing, we tried to make their philosophy an optimistic one. GDI wants to get rid of Tiberium and has a very apocalyptic view of what's happening to Earth. Nod has an uplifting world view. Tiberium is a gift. It's here to lift us up, it's here to transform us, it's the ultimate expression of progress.

And GDI is not unambiguously good. It's a big, ponderous bureaucracy that gets in its own way sometimes. Just like in the current day, you might end up with political leaders who are in conflict for the heart and soul of that organization. During C&C 3, you watch one of those conflicts take place and you actually have to pick a side.

GamesRadar: Can you talk more about how the game's plot feels topical to today's issues?

JB: GDI is what you might call a benevolent dictatorship. It's the guardian of humanity. The world is falling apart... Tiberium has destroyed the environment... there are ion storms everywhere. The world's population is displaced - 70% are out in these zones that are almost wastelands. GDI is trying to protect as many people as they can, but they can't save everyone, which makes the majority of the world stuck out there in what we call the "yellow zones" very resentful of the people that live in the "blue zones." So what you have is a population of haves and have-nots.

Meanwhile, Nod is using the have-nots to their own advantage. They're turning them against GDI. These people have nothing intrinsically that they would want to fight about, but they're living in squalor and are jealous, of course.

It's a little bit like what you see Western powers doing. We have to protect ourselves, but what can we do to help these other countries? And when we get there to try to help them, some other interest has turned them against us. That's very topical to what you see in the world today. We didn't go at it like we would with Generals and make it literally ripped-off-the-headlines, but the story is going to seem familiar to those of you paying attention to what's going on.