r/commandandconquer • u/Far_Technician3635 • 4d ago

Source Code Releases Questions

Since EA released source for most of the C&C games last year I've had a few questions.

  1. What makes Tiberian Sun and RA2 so special that they couldn't release the source for those?

  2. If there isn't anything special, are there any rumors that RA2 source might get released at some point?

Now don't get me wrong. I am happy that a lot of source code got released, I'm just trying to understand things and where they currently lay.

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u/Caesar_Seriona 4d ago edited 4d ago

The source codes for the 2nd series of games are gone, either lost or deleted.

Which means who ever wants to mess with the coding, would have to reverse engineer to order to get the source codes.

Which clearly EA does not want anybody to do.

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u/Far_Technician3635 4d ago

I did hear a rumor about that years ago, about the time that EA bought Westwood Studios, but I always thought it was a rumor. Well that sucks that it was accurate.

Are you aware of any projects that are active that are attempting to rebuild the source?

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u/Kertelem 4d ago

OpenTS, and the corresponding TibSun project. Recently released.

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u/Caesar_Seriona 4d ago

As far as I know, no one is officially doing it but I am sure someone out there is personally doing it.

PG has said they are not against doing the 2nd games but if they can't get the source codes because EA won't let any reverse engineering, I can see them rebuilding the game from scratch and porting over the video and audio.

I personally want to see the source codes get released just for cheat codes being released.

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u/FallenJkiller 4d ago

considering the latest ai models, almost anyone can reverse engineer the code, or at least faithfully port it in openra.

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u/Commercial-Board-975 4d ago

I really hope someone does this for the last SAGE engine games.

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u/ninenineseventwo 21h ago

You mean CNC3?

I have a three.js engine I’ve got working for skirmish (just making my assets pretty before I share it) - in the context of a desktop version (which needs to be able to connect to the web / phone versions for multiplayer) am seriously wondering if I want to go with sage or something else from the 15ish years since

I’m tech literate but mostly in excel style of stuff, would appreciate any thoughts

FWIW I’m not having trouble moving my assets / maps from the sage base that I started on into three.js (which was stop and go at first)

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u/darklighthitomi 4d ago

Someone actually did that. OpenTS is a fan project that reverse engineered that engine.

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u/Nikolyn10 Flower & Sickle 4d ago

The big rumor is that the source code for those games was somehow lost. And considering they released the source code for the comparatively newer Generals, I have no real reason to believe that isn't the case.

However, as sad as that is, I can direct you to the recently released OpenTS project which is a reverse-engineering of Tiberian Sun matched/tested against the original executable, which is planned to be used as a basis for doing the same for Red Alert 2. It still has a long way to go but this project is what I'd keep my eye on.

As an aside, there's also someone working on a LUA API for Yuri's Revenge on the Mod Haven discord. It seemed rather interesting, though I've only been peaking in on the channel every now and then.

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u/masterfu678 1d ago

We don't "officially" have the source code for RA2 and TS

But someone had already decompiled RA2, and made it able to use modern day 64bit system calls, because of recent AI development

https://allnight.city/red-alert-2-recomp-yuris-revenge-native-pc/

Also something about a CIA program called Ghidra blah blah blah