Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Red Alert starts from the premise that Albert Einstein travels back in time and removes Adolf Hitler from history. That change prevents Nazi Germany from rising, but it leaves Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union to become the main threat against the Allies.

The 1996 Westwood Studios game lets you play Allied and Soviet campaigns. The Allies lean on mobility and naval strength, while the Soviets are known for heavy armor, Tesla technology, and brute-force units.

Red Alert was released after Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn and originally functioned as a kind of alternate prequel thread. Later entries such as Red Alert 2 pushed the series into a more exaggerated Cold War style, separate from the Tiberium timeline's GDI and Nod conflict.

It used fast base building, ore harvesting, FMV briefings, and asymmetric unit design at a time when Warcraft II was one of its main RTS competitors. The game also became famous for units and structures like Tanya, Tesla Coils, Mammoth Tanks, and Chronosphere tech.