How Dark Reign nearly beat Command and Conquer (Documentary)

[@maneus60]

Thank you all for your kind comments. I'm just reaally happy that you all enjoyed DR as much as I, and the entire DR team, had fun making it. :)

[@Quintinius31]

Dark reign is the game that made me love strategy games. One of the very first game I played, I was 6/7 years old. Probably a little far fetched, but I think it took a part in my education. Thanks you

[@bobjones5779]

Great story Greg. So good to hear the whole story in one place. Which I had not hear before from anyone there.

[@adogg-2006]

It was one of my first RTS. I played it in High School. I was totally obsessed with it

[@goldenxan2567]

Watching your interview was truly inspiring. Thank you for being such a great soul, and working with so much love. I hope you have a great time designing your next tabletop games. Thanks very much to Zade for the interview as well, of course.

[@whisped8145]

I am in love with that boardgame collection in the background. Mine is close but not that complete. For one, I missed most of the Runebound expansions. I can see why DR turned to be out as it good as it was, because one needs to be an enthusiast in these types of games to make them good. They're more like baking is to cooking, compared to most other genres. Pity you're on the other side of the planet, for that collection (and interview) implies you'd be a great player to have around. A buddy in NZ is now starting a boardgame club/association after I showed him pictures from one here in my town. There's a joke that when a few Germans meet they immediately found a club/association - for better and for worse :D - On that note, I also regret to have missed out on Arcade. The guy who made it has ceased production because the pieces are quite difficult to make and he makes them all himself. Would have been great to have had that game for the club. It would get a lot of love there. I learned of Dark Reign through a classmate back in the day. Thank you for your work, love for that work, and enriching our childhoods.

[@bezceljudzelzceljsh5799]

wow, you actually went and visited someone responsible for the game. That's some serious dedication

[@Zade_95]

It started as a simple zoom call, and ended up like this!

[@cypriandraku]

what an actual legend! Thank you for this vid, i would have never known that the game that blew my mind was made by such a lad!

[@TheJonathanExp]

This was extremely fascinating 😊

[@bobjones5779]

@@Zade_95 I would love to re-connect with Greg, it has been a long time... But we both worked on those Role Playing Book adventures... As well as the other old Auran titles.

[@lordcabello]

That was awesome! Totally disagree with his stance on hidden information though

[@KalaVeijo]

5/5 Documentary. It's heartwarming to see that there are still people producing quality content

[@Zade_95]

[@bobalot2]

@@Zade_95 Where is Greg Lane working today?

[@phy1umgamer]

Thank you for making this! I haven't seen your channel before, I happened to search for videos about Dark Reign when this video was about 20 minutes old. Perfect timing, just what I needed tonight. As an Australian, thank you so much for the work you put into sharing this story about such an important Australian game dev

[@Zade_95]

Amazing timing! Glad you enjoyed :)

[@jamesabernethy7896]

I did play Dark Reign and did like it but never fully fell in love with it. This was a terrific interview, he seems like such a genuine guy anyway but I also think he was feeding off your presence. I’ve seen a lot of gaming interviews but many are simply over a webcam, most of them were still good but this was special.

[@porjay]

I had no idea this game was made in Australia. Awesome stuff! I had the demo and loved it but I only played once I bought the GOG version.

[@jjm1133]

I was just thinking about Dark Reign a couple of days ago. I never played Command and Conquer or Warcraft, this was my first ever RTS so its a big nostalgia hit. I love that the old website is still up, never let it die.

[@trezenx]

Kinda the same, I just had this urge to maybe go play DR again and I went on youtube and there's this awesome video, right in the feels. Shame we can't do it in HD, I'd be on it already.

[@clickityclak6111]

I can't believe that I had never heard of Dard Reign until this video. Thank you for a fantastic documentary, and thank you for introducing me to a new 90s RTS!

[@RocketCatRTS]

What a great watch! It's fantastic that you had the opportunity to meet with Greg and it was great to hear all his war stories and unearth a lot of details about Dark Reign. He comes off as a very passionate and humble individual, seems like a real proper gentleman geek!

[@Zade_95]

Yeah he was great to chat to and super accommodating. Great guy!

[@Greatdictator]

I genuenly loved every moment where he just shows his support for the modding / long term support for games, we genuenly need more people like him. Also man really does show his love for games throughout this whole thing haha

[@lewissmart7915]

I worked for Greg Lane between 2006-2011 and never realized he'd been involved in Dark Reign, I was probably playing it at home in those years.

[@psybertao]

Wow, this brings back memories! Thanks for the video. I had many hours playing this and many, many more making custimisations with the included toolkit.

[@Zade_95]

My pleasure, thank you for watching!

[@jwarendsen]

Was the first game I actually engaged with during development. I think I was even in the beta at some point? Anyway, thanks for making this, such a nostalgia blast!

[@Max-ht4vc]

Just Wow what a fantastic interview. If you can get more interviews with people involved in any game at a high level. Then you probably have something special here on this channel. I can imagine it would be a lot of work and complex to pull off, so thank you for your work on this video.

[@Zade_95]

I'd certainly like to!

[@mcfly8519]

Greg brought an early build to an Internet Cafe I used to frequent called Interactive Web in Paddington. We loved it, and I still have fond memories of that day. It was definitely revolutionary, and such a polished game.

[@maneus60]

I certainly did :) You've got a good memory!

[@timvictor8926]

Dark Reign was refreshing and awesome. I loved that units had behaviour and that I didn't have to micromanage everything. I wish this was iterated upon and would love to see those concepts developed into a game today.

[@arphaksad01]

Played it back in the day and loved it. Just picked up a boxed set on eBay for my Win95 pc

[@meanmole3212]

What a legend, and what a legend interviewer to take a plane to Australia just to make this happen.

[@kobrapromotions]

this is crazy, I was going to school not far from the companies office when they were developing a game that would go on to forever remind me of those young years

[@moriorinvictus9054]

I completely forgot about Dark Reign. This brought back a lot of great memories I had as a kid. Big thank you for doing this interview and to the legend himself!

[@DockZock]

"Hell yeah Dark Reign" was again said out loud in the living room when this popped up in my sub box. Also those are some excellent boardgames laying around ;)

[@owenbaggaley958]

This is an awesome video about a great Aussie story from our early video game history. Like wow man, this is great quality and I had thought the view count and your account's subs would be way higher too lol

[@ghost-rv9vy]

MIND BLOWN. First the retrospective, now this? Greg is the fuckin' man. Absolutely NAILED it with this follow-up full length documentary! Love it ~Magpie

This is pure gold! Fantastic information for old and new game creators and enjoyers. Thanks a lot for the video, and thanks to Greg for DR!

[@HistoryTeacherSteve]

woah! I'm 1 minute in and already excited. you're now making full documentaries? congrats this is awesome 😊🎉❤

[@ancientgamer3645]

Click on his NAME in the details line "ZANE" and then select his channel to view his other videos. Lots to see.

[@zemek1234]

Yo Zade 1.7 for Company of Heroes 3 has just been released and it seems that Relic's breakup with SEGA brings very good results, because the game immediately changed for the better. We now have vehicle physics for both driving, shooting and getting hit, better pathfinding, more focus on unit abilities, improved audio-graphical style, lots of balance changes aimed at even more tactical behaviors, noticeable reduction in TTK and many other things that I can't fit into one comment. I think it's time to give this game another chance and re-examine the future of Relic :D As for the video itself, Great idea for a new format, great execution and a wonderful topic I love DR2

[@Zade_95]

Yo thanks for the intel, definitely something I can see my self doing, I'll see how I go this year :)

[@zemek1234]

@@Zade_95 Would be great. Unfortunately, players do not realize that the quality of the game has improved significantly in recent months and they still consider it a broken beta without knowing what is happening. KZbinrs and streamers should help a bit in showing that the game is changing for the better for the sake of our beloved Relic, which keeps trying even though they don't have to (The game probably doesn't make any money anyway) Well, I'm waiting for the 6th or 7th video with your CoH3 opinions xD Cheers mate

[@andrewlancefield3730]

Coh3 is a joke coh2 is far better still in every way

[@zemek1234]

​@@andrewlancefield3730 This irreformable view has already been refuted so many times that I don't even want to argue about it xD You have your opinion - I will respect it, but please do not impose it on others without arguments

[@nuruddinshah684]

@@zemek1234 yet it still a joke. Years of trust and will loss. You don't get it back easily. Don't call it " irreformable view " Don't forget about DOW 3. that before COH 3. The 2 THING that put Relic on the Map .

[@jrag1000]

Played this game so much!

[@theimperialowl1011]

Thank you so much for this. I really appreciate your efforts in going behind the scenes and speaking with the unseen individuals that make our games possible. This documentary legitimately made me get and install Darkereign.

[@HenningKoch]

Thanks for your research.

[@theurbangentry]

A truly exemplary video. Outstanding work and insight into a game that really does mean a lot to me. Thank you for taking the time to produce this. Best regards, TGV

[@Sluggerus]

Amazing documentary! Keep up good work, love to see and hear about history of RTS games or what happend to their former developers. 🙂

[@bezceljudzelzceljsh5799]

You know that whole story about activision and having great tools kinda reminded me about warcraft 3 map making scene and how it created bunch of new genres. I know blizzard wasn't bought out by activision then, BUT the dude said he got offers from 10 different places for that game/software.

[@Thesavagesouls]

I need a Dark Reign remaster in my life.

[@spearPYN]

Dune 2, Dark Reign, C&C: Tiberian Sun are still one of the best rts games ever. Military focused sci-fi war themed games were very popular at the time; they always remind me of the Aliens or Forever War vibes...

[@Mitchbaz93]

What a video! i remember going into town as a kid and buying this game!! loved playing dark reign. and for you to get this interview is so wholesome. I enjoyed every minute of it! also when greg was speaking about open play dynamics and how it makes for a better game @ 55:00 was so right. this came to mind when we play uno as a family, we always end up ganging up on the person whos winning and the experience is so much better.

[@KiltedCritic]

Loving these mini documentaries, and also appreciate the chapter breakdowns. Allowed me to watch it in easy chunks through my lunch breaks this week. You’re work has really come on leaps and bounds, keep it up!

[@henrycase3788]

Absolutely quality documentary. Good production! This is the stuff that KZbin is for. Much respect and praise for the dedication in flying all the way to Australia to interview the developer. Dark Reign is a fantastic RTS game and this docu is a great way to honour it.

[@ancientgamer3645]

WOW! His library is bigger than mine used to be, and that is saying a lot. The text-based game ZORK was the first game I played also. I gave all my boxed games to a needy young man who was slightly disadvantage. He lived with his grandmother, and she and I both did volunteer work at a local food bank. She told me her grandson was a gamer and was sorry she couldn't afford to buy him many games. Problem solved. Thanks for sharing.👍👍

[@trezenx]

Thank you for doing this. I played DR as a kid, I was like 8 or 9, and I just remembered it for some reason and found this video and it's such a nostalgia blast. Back in the 90s in Eastern Europe we didn't have internet, forums or even big gaming magazines, so you just went to the market and bought a game or someone (my dad) would bring it and you just play it, because that's all you get. And late 90s were all about RTS and Dark Reign somehow stood out in design and how it felt even then, but I never knew if it was 'good' or 'successful' anywhere else, never knew where it originated from, it was just a good RTS for me personally, and I love to discover that it was indeed a beloved hit.

[@kierynkelly7374]

What an awesome interview Dark reign is one of my childhood favourite games, one I still play today. So awesome to see/hear from one of the creators

[@augustinusmenken9311]

I loved this game so much my handle was snowblind

[@gosimons]

Cant wait to watch all through this today, i used to play so much dark reign back in the in high school in South Australia around 1998. Was such a great game. Had no idea it was Australian. Amazing you flew all the way to Australia for making this. Cant wait to hear directly from this creator legend.

[@kane_lives]

Bro, you and Greg are both Legends! I've really enjoyed this interview.

[@Zade_95]

Thank you mate

[@Liquid-TV]

Incredible interview and documentary! Really great stuff, thanks for doing this. DR is such a special game.

[@JOK3RSON]

Great video.. love seeing this stuff documented so these stories don't get lost.

[@TheChronovisorGlinn]

What a great experience, and what a great man behind the story. Great work, this interview has made my day.

[@Zade_95]

Glad to hear it mate, thanks!

[@Mozair831]

Not sure how this came up in my feed but glad it did. What a fantastic interview and I remember Dark Reign but never played it at the time. This guy is an absolute legend.

[@tni333]

Man I loved that game back in the day. Played it a lot with my dad back then

[@Al_Mars]

Awesome documentary mate! I still remember playing that last campaign mission, there was nothing quite like it at the time.

[@Navinor]

Amazing, this was the game i played the most in my childhood!

[@RudivanderWalt]

I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary! I have fond memories of playing Dark Reign all those years ago, so this was a real treat to see how that all came to be :) Cheers!

[@HoisinCrispyOwl]

Fantastic docco mate, really quality production.

[@Zade_95]

Thank you!

[@nictron99]

Dark Reign was is awesome - Many hours of LAN gaming with friends!

[@rock2k14]

Ooof, this picks at the old wound of a dead IP that was so dearly loved (You know, like EA did to CnC, except this time by Activision)

[@AM-uo2kf]

Great documentary Zade. Good to see some classic Aussie developers as well!

[@m8183]

What a special interview - amazing insight to the person and people behind a much loved title. Thank you!

[@danielwalley6554]

Super interesting to know the story behind this one - thanks to both of you for putting the time in to sharing it.

[@RogueSabre]

What a wonderful documentary, I enjoyed every minute. I never even played dark reign. I played dark reign 2 and actually really enjoyed it at the time. Thanks for the very enjoyable hour.

[@naythin8354]

Dark Reign was a freakin awesome game.

[@RobNZ64]

Nice work man! Quality through and through!

[@Quintinius31]

Dark reign is the game that made me love strategy games. One of the very first game I played, I was 6/7 years old. Probably a little far fetched, but it probably took a part in my education. First time I see someone talk about it. @Zade Thanks you

[@battlebunny88]

Loved the segment about cracking the publishing deal!

[@unagiandroe]

This was amazing. Can't believe I missed this growing up. Just purchased a copy on ebay with manual. Nice work!

[@ShockCombo]

What a legend, both Greg and you for such a great interview, going to such an effort to make this video. Somehow i totally missed this game growing up (too busy with CnC and TA) but his story about developing it and the publishing deal was super interesting. I would love something like this about CnC if any Westwood devs are out there. ❤

[@scorpian007]

Excellent interview. Played the shit out of Dark Reign as a kid, was great to hear some behind the scenes info about it.

[@kiwitales]

Awesome interview. An amazing story! Great job on documenting this history!!!

[@MTalac]

I like the background....a lot of boardgames 😂😂

[@Zade_95]

a LOT

[@jmoz]

Looks awesome and I somehow missed it!?

[@trollamos]

Pretty cool dude, it seems like he didn't need a lot of prodding for the interesting narrative. And/or you're a great interviewer who made himself invisible. Either way, thank you for a video I didn't know I wanted.

[@iyankov96]

Thanks for making this video. I remember my parents getting me this game when I was young. Played quite a bit of it.

[@anthonyortiz7924]

I love this guy, you really get a sense of how nice and humble he is, and how this was a labor of love for him and his team. I remember Dark Reign, I still have it, and I remember how good it was and it's funny, I still think of it from time to time, as a programmer marvelling at how great the pathfinding was and how the units would all line up to go through some narrow passage rather than have one unit go through and block all the other units and forcing the rest to take some other sub-optimal route. Good times!

[@cburger4life144]

Absolutely phenomenal video! Can I just say that I’m extremely jealous of this man’s game collection.

[@Zade_95]

Me too bro... me too

[@hellodean4]

What a great interview! He seems like a great guy. really interesting story.

[@grahamwalker2168]

What a great piece! Thanks for capturing this!

[@bojcio]

I'd say it didn't even come close to beating CnC. It has fallen into obscurity, while CnC is hailed as one of the RTS greats. Very good documentary, nice work!

[@maneus60]

You are quite right. I think Red Alert did about 1.5m in the first 4 weeks. We did around 0.5m. Not bad for a first title though from a little Aussie company. :)

[@bojcio]

​@@maneus60 thats very good. Brilliant actually. You actually made a game and released it, I'm just a random dude. My comment was aimed at the documentary maker's claim that the game nearly beat CnC. Even if sales and the game itself are very good there's other metrics that need to be accounted for when measuring its impact on the genre and industry and looking at the games legacy.

[@UnturnedTome]

Wow! I didn't expect a full documentary from you. Very cool.

[@Zade_95]

[@UnturnedTome]

@@Zade_95 While I have your attention for sec - Have you thought about doing a play of Primitive Wars (or Jurassic Wars in Korea) It is an RTS with art kind of like star craft, Demons, dinosaurs riding dinosaurs, stone age humans good game, but have zero idea about its story other than it is korean - Second game didn't come out in English Story is complicated

[@Zade_95]

Haven't heard of it but I'll have a look!

[@NM-cc1sk]

Fantastic video with a phenomenal bloke!

[@ssss8162]

I LOVED THIS GAME OMG! Brings back so much memories as a kid!

[@YouveBeenCabadged]

I still have the soundtracks to both games in my playlist - loved them both.

[@hyznth]

Awesome interview, Thank you! Now I want to play the game :D

[@vinconssier4224]

So cool, great video. What a legend indeed!

[@Zade_95]

Thanks!!

[@silversolver7809]

Fantastic video Zade, and Greg is a fab subject! Dark Reign was my 3rd fav RTS back then, behind C&C and TA, but ahead of the X-Crafts-a fine game, shame it never developed a franchise. Thanks for this, a great view :)

[@jakejscott]

Thank you for making this!

[@Gold_Bug]

Great interview, I must go play this game now.

[@0XiDiZE]

What a masterpiece interview - Greg's a deadset legend! I gotta know where we can we find the uncompressed intro video and The Dribbler rogue pixel story?!

[@karolis.burzinskas]

Thank you for this interview✌️🙂

[@noemedmedia]

Worked in a game store in Oslo in those days. One summer day, I met a foreign customer. Not that strange, pleny of tourists in summer. Under conversation, it became apparent that this guy had worked on a recent game - Dark Reign! I did play RTS then, and just to be nice I pretended to like DR a little more than I really did, because it was so cool to have an actual developer in my store!

[@N4CR]

First RTS I played, absolutely legendary game and I remember to this day. The cut scene/gameplay in this was nostalgic as hell, didn't know it was an Aussie game though, very impressive. I too realised old hardware would become valuable in the early 00s. This guys collection is staggering man.. wow. Great foresight. He can retire off that collection alone lol.

[@FuLengLives]

Wow so many classic games o his shelf! Wheel of time was such a great classic!

[@AdamAus85]

Growing up with early windows I was aware of Dark Reign, but never got around to playing it until much later. Wild to think we had a developer in Brisbane that made such a well known rts.

[@saladinbob]

I played the shit out of this game and I still have the box, manual and CD Rom. RTS was always my favourite Genre and the '90s was a golden era for it.

[@saladinbob]

FYI I went to the download for Dark Reign and it's getting flagged by my AV as having malware in it. You can buy it and its expansion on GOG for less than the price of a beer though. I highly recommend going there.

[@Grymyrk]

He seems really happy that someone wants to hear his story. I remember seeing all the marketing for this game when I was a kid so I'm super surprised I never played it.

[@sulrich70]

Fascinating documentary and interesting person, well done.

[@codykonior]

I’m so happy to see this video. I really liked Dark Reign when it came out. It was huge for Australians where even the TV news was saying we might become a global powerhouse for gaming based off of this one game alone! And yeah the box was amazing! The manual was still a real manual with a story! I don’t have that anymore but I have the physical discs and manual plus own it on GOG. But I’d never seen anything about Auran in this detail. I did try Dark Reign 2 and it was pretty but felt so different. And this was all around the time of Total Annihilation which its 3D sprites and that took over everything. Oh man, the glory days of RTS! I hope there’s some archive of their site with these dribbler stories; and now to go looking for the community again and give it a try!

[@CarlosEduardo-sm6cy]

Amazing interview.

[@SINfromPL]

This is super interesting documentary! I played a ton fo CNC but dont remember Dark Reign.. Great story telling!

[@OrinThomas]

Given that the Paul Allen computer museum just closed down, perhaps it's time for the BrisVegas Computer Museum

[@Axehilt]

Interesting to hear how they tackled the challenge of ramping up their company. Jumpstarting game development in a country where it doesn't exist, _pre-internet basically,_ is hard! You really do need those "connections guys". Also always amusing to hear how many people were mailing disks and hard drives back then. I think we were still doing that as late as 2004ish, as the internet just wasn't _quite_ good enough early on (even with the good connections these companies usually had). DR1 was my first big multiplayer RTS, so I love getting the insider story on the game. Also this is the first I've ever seen the true song titles of those music tracks and now I kinda wanna search for the rest of the titles. It's long been one of my favorite gaming soundtracks too (sadly Jeehun Hwang went on to do very forgettable movie scores; I'd love if he'd return to Epic Sweeping Game Scores like his work on DR and Mechwarrior 2)

[@xxnoxx-xp5bl]

Amazing work - thank you!

[@tyrantsonthefield]

Literally went and bought this after watching the documentary such a fun blast from the past

[@artrobinson9310]

Bro, good content. Love from Hamilton/Kirikiriroa