Speaking to Videogamer.com Victory Games' general manager Jon Van Canegham said "the days of a boxed [Command & Conquer] release are probably over".
Explaining the series change to a free-to-play format he said, "from both a features and an ongoing, adding-to-the-product point of view, it was more exciting to go the free-to-play route than it was the boxed route.
"And given what's been happening with retail and around the world… For example, we think one of our bigger markets will be Asia with this game, and there is no retail market there. And some of the games that have done really well there have followed this exact model, so we really think Command & Conquer is much more of a worldwide franchise.
"We have fans in every country around the world: Eastern Europe, China, you name it… We want to be able to bring this game to everyone, and I think not going the retail route was the way that we could expand our audience to a bigger audience."
Canegham says that Victory Games has a ten year vision for the franchise and will add additional content from multiple Command & Conquer universes over the course of the game's life cycle.
"It's a long-term goal," he continues. "We built this Command & Conquer shell and frame to be the one-stop place for Command & Conquer for the next 10 years, so we want to add the other universes and maybe even a new universe that we didn't even have before, all under the same landing site, log-in [and] persona that you would keep track of.
"We definitely believe it will [last 10 years]. And if we can keep it updated it'll last even longer."
With Victory Games' free-to-play focus it seems unlikely that players can expect a full retail release.
"Yeah, I think maybe the days of a boxed [Command & Conquer] release are probably over," Van Canegham adds. "But there's always a need sometimes for Collector's Editions that are nice to put in a box where you get extra materials, so that's not out of the question [for Command & Conquer 2013]. In fact, a lot of people in a lot of territories have asked for those.
"I think there's still a desire for that in a lot of places. People want the art book or the figurines or whatever we decide to do in a Collector's Edition that you can't get digitally. "
Command & Conquer free-to-play is set for release later this year.
