"Command & Conquer": Electronic Arts releases source code

Electronic Arts (EA) has published the complete source code for four titles in the "Command & Conquer" ("C&C") game series. These are available under GPL license (General Public License) on GitHub. Fans of real-time strategy games and other interested parties can use them to adapt the games to run on modern systems and also have the opportunity to make extensive modifications.

The modding scene is celebrating the move in initial reactions. Immediately afterwards, there were calls for EA and other game publishers to make this standard so that popular but, as in the case of "C&C", discontinued series and game titles remain playable. The first source code for the "C&C" series was published a few years ago.

Community veteran helped with publication

In the case of "C&C", Electronic Arts approached Luke "CCHyper" Feenan, a 20-year veteran of the community, as announced in a blog post on Steam. Together with employees at Electronic Arts, he worked on restoring the source code archives of the "C&C" games to a usable state.

The source codes of "Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn" plus the expansion "Kane's Wrath" (in Germany "Der Tiberiumkonflikt" and "Kanes Rache"), "Red Alert" ("Alarmstufe Rot"), "Renegade" and "Generals" with the expansion "Zero Hour" ("Generäle", "Die Stunde Null") have been published. EA has also activated Steam Workshop support for the titles "Renegade", "Generals" & "Zero Hour", "Tiberium Wars" & "Kane's Wrath", "Red Alert 3" & "Uprising" and "Tiberian Twilight" so that users can upload their own maps and mods. The necessary mission editor and world builder tools have been updated. There is also a "C&C Modding Support" package that contains source XML, schema, script, shader and map files for all games that use the SAGE engine.

Compilation is no child's play

It has been noted in gaming forums that parts of the series are missing, including "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2" from the year 2000. The reason for this could be technical difficulties. However, some fans are hoping for a second remastered collection of the game series, the first part of which was released in 2020.

A first look at the source code shows that compiling the code is anything but child's play. The software, which is largely written in C++, requires numerous SDKs. In addition, modern compilers expect compliance with the latest C++ standards. According to the accompanying documentation, this will require considerable changes to the source code –, especially if the games are to be ported to the Win64 platform.

(mki)