- Banned in China: Literally.
- The Chinese censors didn't take very kindly to the way the game depicted them as well as how players can play foreign forces, including terrorists, against the game's depiction of PLA, so the game was never officially released there. Some have speculated that the GLA nuclear attack on Tiananmen Square in the first Chinese mission is partially responsible. Others have taken note to the army's Butt-Monkey status in almost every opening scene for their campaign missions. Another likely factor is that the PLA in the game heavily relies on Artistic License – Military to the point where it's completely divorced from reality (for comparison imagine if the USA faction in the game used Sherman tanks and had Revolutionary Era militias as basic infantry and buildings based on the White House and Capitol).
- There also happen to be a mission where you (the PLA) would destroy the Three-Gorges Dam in order to drown the GLA Forces, and the residents living in the vicinity, something which in real life would cause millions of deaths from floodings, cause billions of dollars worth of damage and cripple China's industry and economy. note Though if you don't destroy the dam yourself the GLA is scripted to do it eventually In addition, a throwaway blurb in the front of the game's manual states that the GLA have origins in Turkic Central Asian countries and implies that they have links to Uighur separatists in Xinjiang, a conflict the Chinese really don't like to talk about.
- In spite of this, pirated and fan-translated copies of the game are hugely popular among Chinese gamers, as it presents their country's military as a Worthy Opponent to the United States, with Rule of Cool weapons such as nuclear missiles, gatling guns, a tactical nuclear howitzer and flamethrowers. The aesthetics of China such as the copious helpings of Artistic License – Military, the Zerg Rush tactics and the ridiculous architecture and voice lines are seen more as Narm Charm than offensive.
- Bowdlerise: Germany's Censorship Systems also didn't quite like the game and due to its violence, especially regarding the mandatory kills of civilians in some missions as well as in the context of the Third Gulf War in Iraq back then in 2003. Also, "gloryfication of war" was one of the official reasons which resulted in the game getting banned two weeks after its release. In September 2003, a specifically modified version of the game for Germany was released which changes the following:
Zero Hour was never even released in its original version in Germany and was censored from the very beginning. However, this didn't stop modders from releasing uncut-patches that restore the original version. The only thing that can't be solved regarding
Zero Hour is the enemy Generals sometimes commenting your units as cyborgs and the faction getting referenced by their censored names in the campaign.
- Dueling Works: With Age of Mythology, with both games being spinoffs of their parent franchise, making the first leap into 3D.
- Dummied Out:
- Fai's challenge is not in the final challenge campaign, but still exists. Additionally, there are files for his troops to receive a similar chemical suits upgrade to American infantry, but it is not implemented in the game.
- Despite Tao's already staggering array of nuclear weapons, remnants of cut content indicates that he was intended to have even more, including nuclear Tank Hunters, nuclear Red Guards (with some manner of "radiation rocket"), nuclear Hackers that can set up briefcase nukes, an ability to call in a plane-dropped tactical nuclear strike, and further tech upgrades for the Uranium Shells and Nuclear Tanks upgrades he starts with.
- Most of the game files for a "Hypersonic Aurora" still exist, which would have been basically General Alexander's Aurora Alpha and used the same model and texture, except with laser point defense and an even more powerful fuel air bomb. It was likely scrapped to give such a plane to General Alexander and because an Aurora bomber with fuel air bombs, point defense lasers, and countermeasures would have been a balance nightmare.
- Nearly all of the game files for two additional superweapons for her exist, save for the .ini files that contain the actual parameters to make them functional structures. Those superweapons would be the Tomahawk Storm and the Cruise Missile Silo, which would act as American versions of the Scud Storm and Nuclear Missile, respectively, albeit without their rather nasty biological and radioactive side effects. The Tomahawk Storm even looks like a Scud Storm in American concrete, chain link fence, and steel, instead of GLA sandstone, up to and including a strangely pointless scaffolding in the middle to imitate the Scud Storm's toxin tank.
- Unused audio files suggest that at some point, Townes was going to have Laser Rangers, Laser Missile Defenders, a laser upgrade for the Humvee instead of the TOW missile, a laser-armed Colonel Burton, Laser Paladins, Laser Stealth Fighters, Laser Commanches, and a Laser Cannon instead of the Particle Uplink Cannon. The last of these, the Laser Cannon, would have been less powerful, but fired longer and unlocked after building an airfield instead of a strategy center.
- Juhziz's level is not in the final challenge campaign, but still exists. Additionally, there is an icon that indicates that he was, at some point, intended to have a unique smaller and triangular Scud Storm without the toxin tank in the center, as well as audio files that indicate that he may have been intended to have a true war factory instead of the normal arms dealer. He was also planned to have a variant of the Battle Bus called the Demo Battle Bus, which would have been able to drop off Demo Traps.
- The Marauder was at one point planned to have a third salvage upgrade that would have given it a third gun, and models for this upgrade still exist.
- Executive Meddling: This led to Generals 2 being retooled into Command & Conquer: Free-2-Play.
- Screwed by the Lawyers: The mod team for Halogen, a Halo-themed total conversion, received a cease-and-desist from Microsoft, as the latter were working on their own ''Halo'' RTS game.
- What Could Have Been:
- In the alpha-stage, Generals was supposed to tie into the Tiberium universe. You can find many early Generals concepts with a lot of Nod units drawn on them. Most Chinese units at the time also bears the Nod insignia. There was some quite disturbing, but clearly Noddish unit design, too, nameably, Kane's head in a jar.
- Another very early concept had an "African Empire" faction based on African warlords with heavily mutated animal and infantry units and vehicles cobbled together from scrap with very strong Mad Max aesthetics. This faction became the GLA after dropping the African focus and mutations and toning down the "scavenger" elements. Another faction that later became China was called the "Asian Empire" or "Khan Faction" and while the aesthetics are mostly similar to the final release they had more Mongolian influences.
- The original Generals planned to have players choose a specific general from their Command Center in-game before they could start base-building, this idea was scrapped due to time constraints. Zero Hour re-implemented the idea, but instead players choose in the pre-game menu instead of in-game.
- In the beta stage, each side was able to "subdue" enemy infantry with a specific weapon: the USA uses flashbangs, Chinese had stun bullets and the GLA employs tranquilizer darts. Subdued enemy units will fall under the captor's control, who can then load them onto POW trucks to send them back to POW camps, where the prisoners are used to "power-up" the player's special power, much like how Nod Chemical Missile logic worked in Tiberian Sun. The POW logic is broken and unusable in the final release, but assets for all the POW trucks and POW camps are still largely intact; the American POW Truck even appears under CPU control in the fourth mission of the USA campaign. Rangers still ended up getting the Flash-bang upgrade, but it now works purely as an anti-garrison/anti-infantry weapon (it's very effective against GLA Angry Mobs), yet they kept the "Subdue" voice when using this attack. More on the POW logic: The original idea was for players to send the prisoners back to the POW camp to power-up a specific power, and also receives a small amount of cash. The more prisoner the player sends into the POW camp, the longer the duration of their special power will be.
- The US could activate the CIA Intelligence power from the Detention Camp, which allows them to see what their enemy can see for a brief period of time. The Detention Camp is still buildable in the original Generals, but without the POW ability, and the CIA Intelligence power became a normal special power which requires cool-down. Zero Hour completely removed the Detention Camp and merged the special power into the Strategy Center.
- China could activate the Defector power from their Propaganda Center, which can be used to convert enemy units to your side. The Defector logic still exists in the final game, but it changed to convert a random unit from the enmy, which causes huge balance issues, as a result very few mods would re-enable this function.
- The GLA Prison could activate the Demoralize power that rapidly reduces affected unit's firing rate. The Demoralize logic is marked "Obsolete" in the final release, but is in fact still workable with a few tweaks, although it now affects your own units as well.
- The Red Guard used to have a bayonet which it could use to stab enemies. The code and cameos are still there and can easily be re-enabled.
- The prototype Red Guard was also called the "Conscript", and has a cameo in the game files (ironically the cameo is of a Taiwanese soldier, and China in real life de facto doesn't employ conscription because Chinese people volunteer for the PLA in droves).
- In the "Tiberium-saga Prequel" phase, the American power plant was originally going to have a clearly-discernable tokamak*The place in a fusion reactor analogous to a fission pile, shaped like a donut where the Containment Field crushes gas into plasma. It is currently the most promising (though not the only) design for potential commercial fusion energy in the center.
- The Crusader tank was originally meant to be a Hover Tank. Remnants of this are still seen in the game manual and some mods restore it to give the Crusader the ability to cross water.
- The Superweapon General in Zero Hour originally got the ICBM and Tomahawk Storm in addition to the Particle Cannon. The code, cameos and models are all present, but partly broken.
- In the planning stage of Zero Hour, Dr.Thrax (Toxin General) and Prince Kassad's (Stealth General) faction work very different from their skirmish selves in the released version. Thrax had a unique model and cameo for his RPG Troopers, and his infantry are immune to toxin and radiation, while Kassad had almost all of his units and structures stealthed off the bat, was able to build up to 5 Jarmen Kell hero units, and holds the unique "Quad Sniper" upgrade which allows his Quad Cannons to fire sniper shots, instantly annihilating enemy infantry squads. The player still encounters this version of them in the USA campaign and GLA campaign respectively, and much of these assets can still be placed on the custom maps using the World Builder, but are otherwise inaccessible in Skirmish games.
- Zero Hour was planned to feature one additional general for the USA and GLA, General Ironside and General Mohmar Deathstrike respectively, both of whom had lines recorded before they were cut note With Ironside's lines being hilariously self-aware and tongue-in-cheek about the Eagleland depiction of the War on Terror in the game. The latter was further in development, having unused icons, and was planned to serve a boss general for the GLA who had the strengths of all three generals but none of their weaknesses. Presumably Ironside was intended to have the same role for the USA. Deathstrike ultimately did appear in the first GLA mission of Zero Hour, in which the player has to escort his limo to a hijacked C-130 and destroy all US forces en route.
- Fortunately, much of the cut content from Zero Hour has been restored by mods, most notably Shockwave and ProGen.
