Both the Allied campaign and the Soviet campaign start after the events of the original Red Alert, in which the USSR was defeated by the Allies after attempting to 'bring revolution to world'. Main article: Third World War (Red Alert 2) Red Alert 2 received an average rating of 86% according to GameRankings criteria. The Red Alert 2 singleplayer campaign is structured in an alternate-ending mode as opposed to a progressive story mode introduced in Tiberian Sun Firestorm earlier that year.

Red Alert 2 contains two playable factions: the Allies and the Soviets, both of which previously appeared in the first Red Alert game. In October 2001, the expansion pack Yuri's Revenge was released.

Set in the early 1970s, Red Alert 2 picks up at the conclusion of the Allied campaign of the first game, making the original idea of Red Alert being a prequel to Tiberian Dawn difficult to realize and separating the Red Alert universe as its own series. Although not originally envisioned by Westwood Studios, Red Alert 2 was created following the success of the original Red Alert. Keyboard, mouse Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is a 2.5D real-time strategy computer game developed by Westwood Pacific and released in October 2000 as the follow-up to Command & Conquer: Red Alert.