Tiberium Secrets

The Tiberium Secrets mod set itself a highly ambitious goal: to chart a possible path forward for the entire Tiberium universe, which EA had long since lost interest in. Development ran from 2011 to 2020, and over the years the team made contact with industry veterans — notably Louis Castle and Mark Skaggs, as well as Frank Klepacki and a number of former Westwood and EA staff — but concluded with a release containing only a third of the planned content, as the Colony and SSLD factions were never realized due to the excessively ambitious scope of development.

At the heart of the mod are three original factions, each with its own mechanics, units, and lore.

Artificial Systematic Intelligence (ASI) is an army under the command of a self-aware AI named ASIM, created by five scientists from the Black Hand. ASIM offers immortality through the cybernization of consciousness and leads a sleepless army from a colossal fortress-monastery in North Africa. Technological progress matters more to ASI than Tiberium — the faction looks further ahead than any other.

The Colony is a once-powerful alien civilization that has devolved into an infectious parasitic species. The Colony subsists on Tiberium gases, continuously mutates, and infects any biomass upon contact. Endlessly expanding, it operates as a single organism.

The Special Strategic Lunar Division (SSLD) is a classified remnant of US military forces that took refuge at Area 51 during the Third World War. While states crumbled, the SSLD continued developing technologies thought to be lost. Now, as GDI and Nod grow weaker, this ghost army may prove to be humanity's last bastion.

GDI, Nod, and Scrin were also reworked. GDI, stripped of its orbital infrastructure following the Scrin invasion, refocused on heavy armor and modified walkers. Nod, strengthened by GDI's losses, faces internal divisions among Kane's followers. Scrin, forced to retreat after the failure of the first wave, are preparing a strike twice as powerful. The final release also integrated subfaction units from Kane's Wrath into the original factions.

Tiberium Secrets is a project with an unconventional vision and a genuine love for the C&C universe, completed in 2020 with a third of the originally planned content. ASI, the only fully realized new faction, proved divisive: visually it falls short of the expectations of those who wanted to see a new CABAL, and the mod's overall balance cannot be called good. Nevertheless, the ambition of its concept and the team's long history make it a meaningful chapter in the game's modding history.