Archive Command & Conquer footage of Renegade and Generals tech demos has also been found, and released on YouTube.
One of the most influential video game series ever, Command & Conquer, has already had its source code released in the form of the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection back in 2020. This featured Red Alert and Tiberium Dawn. Now, key sequels Renegade and Generals have also been given a GPL licence and released on GitHub by Electronic Arts, accompanied by this announcement.
Luke Feenan, (“CCHyper” within the C&C community, of which he is a long-term member) an admin of CnCNet, was given the task of searching the Command & Conquer archive to “officially research improvements to many of the games in the Ultimate Collection.”
Command & Conquer, open sourced
The result of this is that the games source code have been restored to “buildable states, which now provides us with the ability to patch these classic games in a deeper way going forward.”
Which basically means that the games can be downloaded and played for free, the source code recompiled for different platforms, and various enhancements developed and released by enthusiast third parties, without publisher oversight.
In addition, a modding support pack has been released for the Steam Workshop, which “contains the source Xml, Schema, Script, Shader and Map files for all the games that use the SAGE engine.”
As noted, some old development footage has also been unearthed, and released on YouTube.
Incidentally, did you know you can play Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 in your browser?
Remembering Tiberium
While I’m an admirer of the Command & Conquer franchise, I never took to the game as much as I did Dune II. Perhaps it was the fast scrolling, which often left me disoriented, or the fact that I bought Command & Conquer in a double pack with Civilization II… let’s face it, I only wore out one of those game discs!
Still, it’s great news to hear of a another addition to the open source world of classic titles. Let the mods, rebuilds, and improvements commence!
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Christian Cawley is a writer and editor who covers consumer electronics, IT, and entertainment media. He has written for publications such as Computer Weekly, Linux Format, MakeUseOf.com, and Tech Radar.
He also produces podcasts, has a cigar box guitar, and of course, loves retro gaming.
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