With EA's drive towards mainly new intellectual property at this year's E3 event, you'd be forgiven for forgetting that the publisher is sitting on one of the most loved strategy franchises of all time, Command & Conquer.

Today, rumours which have burst through the might gates of the Internet have revealed that a fourth title in the series, allegedly named Command & Conquer 4 is in development or pre-production, according to a survey that was circulated by a British market research company.



The survey contends that a new Command & Conquer game exists with the following block of text:

Command & Conquer 4 allows C&C fans to finally experience the epic conclusion to the 15-year Tiberium saga with innovative RPG-like player progression, persistent in both single-player and multiplayer modes, co-op play, and new stylized, live-action cinematics.

Play with all new, bigger and badder, units from GDI and Nod, including the Crawler, the first ever mobile base in RTS games.

Ignoring the fact that "The Crawler" is not in fact the "first ever mobile base in a RTS game" (think Supreme Commander, and the British command trucks of Company of Heroes), the survey then goes on to list a number of potential game features which include the following:

• Play in epic 5 vs. 5 online multiplayer with all new objective-based game modes.
• Play the campaign on your own or tackle it with a friend, as co-operative campaigns return.
• Introducing the first mobile base in RTS games: The Crawler. Focus on the action as the Crawler becomes your all-in-one base, which can be deployed and redeployed anywhere on the battlefield for even more strategic options.
• Play in the first ever class-based C&C game--a new challenge for C&C and RTS players to master.
• Dive into an all-new story written by a new scriptwriting team and told through trademark C&C cinematics taken to the next level with grittier, stylized FMVs in the vein of Minority Report.
• Play in the first RTS game with MMORPG-like player progression in which you are rewarded every time you play. Every unit you kill in single player, multiplayer, or skirmish gives you experience points that allows you to level up your abilities and unlock new units, powers, and upgrades to your arsenal.

While none of these features are yet to be confirmed, it looks pretty certain that we should see Command & Conquer 4 at some point in the future.

If previous releases in the series are anything to go by, expect to see the title on the PC, PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. We'll bring you more information regarding the title as it comes to light. While it could be a rumour, it looks fairly likely that EA could be getting ready to announce something new soon.

Those who splurged on the collector's edition of Red Alert 3 may be able to get in on the action sooner than others, as the promise of "beta access to a new game" was part of the collector's edition package. (There goes all hope of Command & Conquer: Generals 2, I suppose.)

All screenshots featured are from Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars