As a highly-anticipated sequel to Command & Conquer, Tiberian Sun follows the continuing struggle for world domination between the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod, and the struggle between humanity and the alien Tiberium substance. The game story is a follow up to the original, in which the Nod leader Kane resurfaces from death with renewed vigor, funds, and manpower. The game's theme revolves around the matter of the origin of Tiberium and its terraforming properties.

The game uses an isometric perspective with varying terrain height. Dynamic lighting allows for day/night cycles and special effects, such as ion storms. Maps feature cityscapes where units could hide or battle in urban combat. Some buildings and armored units are rendered with voxels, although infantry is still rendered as sprites.

The full motion video is also scripted differently; while the cutscenes of Command & Conquer and Red Alert were filmed from a first-person perspective, Tiberian Sun used traditional cinematic shots for its FMVs featuring well known Hollywood actors such as James Earl Jones of the original Star Wars trilogy and Michael Biehn of Terminator and Aliens.

Tiberian Sun was speculated to be a BattleMech-type game, as shown in a teaser video in Command & Conquer, but later proved to follow the real-time strategy formula. However, three mech units (the Wolverine, Titan, and Mammoth Mark II) were featured in the game, replacing some of the more conventional jeeps and tanks that were featured in Command & Conquer.

The expansion pack, Command & Conquer: Firestorm, took the storyline to new heights of complexity and introduces new missions and new gameplay features. Instead of featuring GDI against Nod as in earlier Command & Conquer games, GDI and Nod were shown as being compelled to join forces in order to overcome Nod's renegade artificial intelligence, CABAL (Computer Assisted Biologically Augmented Lifeform).

Pentium 166 MHz, 32 MB RAM, Windows 95/98/ME/NT 4.0/2000/XP, 2 MB PCI direct draw compliant graphics card, DirectX 6 compatible sound card, 150 MB hard disk space, 4x CD-ROM drive