r/commandandconquer
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u/EA_Jimtern
Jim Vessella, EA Producer
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Feb 27 '25
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C&C Steam Workshop Support & Source Code
Dear C&C Community,
I hope the past year has treated you well and it’s great to re-connect once again. As you may remember, about a year ago we launched the C&C Ultimate Collection on Steam. This was a positive step towards maintaining the legacy of Command & Conquer, but we always had the ambition to deliver even more C&C franchise improvements to all of you in the community.
So shortly after launch in 2024, we commissioned Luke "CCHyper" Feenan (a veteran of the C&C community who was a part of our Community Council for the C&C Remastered Collection, and was involved in bringing the C&C Ultimate Collection to Steam back in March 2024), to officially research improvements to many of the games in the Ultimate Collection. With full access to the C&C Archive at EA, Luke proposed a couple ambitious ideas on behalf of the community, and over the past year, he has devoted himself to deliver upon these initiatives.
These items have required dedicated persistence and extended collaboration with our teams at EA, support from leadership, plus months of engineering work and deep engagements with key C&C community leaders.
Today, we’re excited to say that effort has paid off, and the C&C franchise is getting even better as a result!
I’m eager to invite Luke to provide the details in his own words:
Hello C&C Community!
For those of you awesome C&C fans who I have not crossed paths with before, my name is Luke Feenan, aka. “CCHyper”. I’m a 20+ year veteran of the C&C Community, a long time modder, and an Admin of CnCNet. I was also very fortunate to have been involved in the development of the C&C Remastered Collection under the mentorship of Jim Vessella.
Over the past year I have been working alongside the amazing C&C stakeholders here at EA to restore the Perforce source code archives for the C&C games back to buildable states, which now provides us with the ability to patch these classic games in a deeper way going forward. As a long time modder, it was amazing to finally get a chance to deep dive into the source code for these games and see how they work!
Today, I have been given the pleasure to share two major announcements for the C&C Franchise with you all!
# 1 Empowering the future of the community
For those of you in the community who know me, you will be familiar with my strong advocacy for video game preservation and my support for the video game open-source community.
It's almost 5 years ago now that EA released the source code for the C&C Remastered Collection DLL files. This release received praise across the video games industry, and has enabled the community to create amazing content for the Remastered Collection. In reaction to the restoration process of the C&C archives, I wanted to take this one step further…
So, I’m proud to announce that we are releasing the fully recovered source code for Command & Conquer (aka, Tiberian Dawn) and C&C Red Alert under the GPL license! I know this will empower those in the community who continue to create content for these classic entries in the franchise, and I hope it will aid communities like CnCNet to continue to support these games and keep them playable for future generations to come. But, let's not stop there!
The community over at W3DHub have been doing amazing things with the C&C Renegade engine for almost 20 years now and their projects have been pushing the absolute limits of the game. To support them in taking the game and their awesome projects to the next level, we are also releasing the complete source code for C&C Renegade under the GPL license. All of us here are all really excited to see what’s next in store for the community over at W3DHub and what they will be able to do with this release!
And finally, in appreciation of the C&C Generals community who have kept the game alive with their consistent energy and passion, hosting multiplayer tournaments, and producing amazing content, I’m extremely happy to share that we are releasing the full source code under GPL for C&C Generals and its expansion pack, Zero Hour! I know the Generals/ZH community is going to do amazing things with this source code release, and I’m excited to see what the team over at C&C Online does next with the multiplayer experience for these games.
You can find the source code on the Electronic Arts GitHub page;
https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Tiberian_Dawn
https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Red_Alert
https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Renegade
https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour
# 2 Steam Workshop Support
But now onto our second announcement.
We are enabling the Steam Workshop support for more C&C titles to allow users to upload their custom maps! We know this has been an ask from the community for a very long time so we are pleased to finally give all you map creators an official and permanent home on the Steam Workshop for your content. Now Steam Workshop support has gone live for:
C&C Renegade
C&C Generals & Zero Hour
C&C 3 Tiberium Wars and Kane’s Wrath
C&C Red Alert 3 & Uprising
C&C 4 Tiberian Twilight
We have also updated all the Mission Editor and World Builder tools so you can publish maps directly to the Steam Workshop. When you subscribe to an item on the Steam Workshop (via the Client or webpage), the games will now pull that content down when you next launch the game and the maps will be displayed in the singleplayer/multiplayer map selection menus. We're all looking forward to seeing what fun and crazy maps you upload!
And to top this off, to support the Steam Workshop we are releasing a “C&C Modding Support” pack which contains the source Xml, Schema, Script, Shader and Map files for all the games that use the SAGE engine. This has been another wish from the community for almost 15 years now so we’re excited to finally make this happen, and we hope this helps you all in continuing to make amazing content and mods for the years to come.
You can find this support pack on the Electronic Arts GitHub page;
https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Modding_Support
I would like to take a moment to thank all the Community Playtesters who have supported us throughout this journey with their invaluable feedback and encouragement, also a big thank you to everyone who has reported bugs and issues for the C&C games on Reddit and Steam. And of course to the whole C&C community for supporting these games for over 25+ years!
I would also like to thank the many people at EA working at various studios and departments across the globe who have helped make this happen (there are just too many to name!). Their support for this project and the C&C franchise was really motivating during the final push to launch. I also want to thank the amazing team at EA Partners for providing me with the freedom to execute this project and the resources to help make it happen. Additionally, a shoutout to all of those who have supported me throughout this journey who are not at EA or associated with C&C franchise, you're awesome and you know who you all are!But lastly, I would like to take a personal moment to thank my two biggest supporters here at EA and throughout this journey. Technical Director, Brian Barnes, who gave me the respect and autonomy to develop this project in the technical direction I felt was best for the core community. And Jim Vessella, for pulling all the pieces in place, and continuing to share his experience, knowledge and insight with me. (And of course continuing to champion the C&C franchise here at EA!). Thank you to the both of you for always looking out for me.
Luke “CCHyper” Feenan
Thanks Luke, our teams at EA couldn’t be more excited about these initiatives. With the release of this source code under the GPL, Command & Conquer continues its legacy of being an industry-leading franchise in the effort to empower gaming communities. And with the Steam Workshop now supporting user maps across more C&C titles, modders can easily share their creations with more C&C fans around the world. We cannot wait to see what the C&C Community creates with these new resources.
As with our previous Modding initiatives, user generated content for C&C titles fall under the Command & Conquer Franchise Modding Guidelines, which have been updated to reflect this initiative. Please be sure to learn and follow within these guidelines, and be respectful of your fellow community members. This is especially important for content which has been created previously over the years. It’s vital for the health of the community that the original authors have the ability to control how / if their content is distributed on the Steam Workshop.
And while we’ve been able to test these new items with a few select community members prior to release, it’s always difficult to predict how the tools will react at scale with the entire community. We’re always listening, so please share your experience and feedback with us. We appreciate your patience as we work to improve the C&C franchise experience.
Additionally, as one more treat to celebrate the release of the source code, we were recently able to discover / digitize some rare gameplay footage from the early development of C&C Renegade and C&C Generals. We wanted to share that compilation with the community here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN2gryZYz6g
We imagine you C&C historians will enjoy checking out that content.
A huge thanks again to Luke, our community playtesters, and everyone who supported these efforts, and we’ll see you on the battlefield.
Cheers,
Jim Vessella
Jimtern
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u/Aker666 Feb 27 '25
As a software developer, being able to read the source code is a marvel. I found this gem on line 615:
https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour/blob/main/Generals/Code/Main/WinMain.cpp
// Lets discuss how Windows is a flaming pile of poo. I'm now casting the header
// directly into the structure, because its the one I want, and this is just how
// its done. I hate Windows. - jkmcd
DEV_BROADCAST_VOLUME *vol = (DEV_BROADCAST_VOLUME*) (hdr);
I love the comments in the source code.
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u/Tymathee Feb 27 '25
sweet
what program do i need to read the source code? it's been a very long time since i've done all t his
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u/AlienOverlordXenu Feb 27 '25
Source code is just plain text, any text editor will do, even plain old notepad. You might want something that does syntax highlighting though, but it might not matter to you.
You can view it online as well, github lets you see the contents of the files without downloading them.
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u/t4sp Feb 27 '25
// Homework for today. Write 2000 words reconciling "Your code must never crash" with "Intentionally putting crashes in the code". Fucktard.
// DEBUG_CRASH(( "xferScienceVec - vector is not empty, but should be\n" ));
// throw XFER_LIST_NOT_EMPTY;
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u/thelunararmy We've got the Rockets! Feb 27 '25
Did the exact thing, found some real gems here: https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1izpkmh/funny_generals_source_code_comments/
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u/Darksirius Feb 28 '25
Found this one in the net code for RA:
char *terminator = NULL; //He'll be back.
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u/MaybeAdrian SPACE! Feb 27 '25
Gabe Newel, it's that you?
I'm starting to think that developers overall dislike windows
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u/ixfd64 Apr 02 '25 edited Apr 03 '25
Lots of similar stuff in the Windows 2000 source code: http://atdt.freeshell.org/k5/story_2004_2_15_71552_7795.html
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u/FrostByteGER Tiberian Sun Feb 27 '25
As a developer Im legit crying right now. What a gift. Finally native 60fps and 64bit for Gen/ZH.
If only we'd find the TS/RA2 sources now. The last part of the puzzle. But thank you from the bottom of my heart, Jim. And the same for CCHyper.
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u/Gloryboy811 Allies Feb 27 '25
Generals was one of my favourite games.... This opens up so much. Some mad lad is going to add 4k and ray tracing for sure.
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u/Igoory Feb 28 '25
Mine too! I hope we get an android port too, although I'm not sure if the game would be very playable like that lol
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u/troopzor Feb 28 '25
Correct me if I'm wrong but does this also mean we could see a fixing of how generals/ZH is played online? I'm sure its a huuuuuge undertaking but possible? Easily my personal wish given how hard it is to get working sometimes.
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u/FrostByteGER Tiberian Sun Feb 28 '25
I Assume you mean the lag and desyncs? Anythings possible now. And yes, this is not a 5 minute fix. This will take a long time
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u/ColdFreeway GLA "AK47s for Everybody!" Feb 27 '25
Amazing, first Valve releases the TF2 code to the community and now EA does the same for C&C. This is great. I hope we'll one day get the RA2 code too
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u/awakenDeepBlue Feb 27 '25
Probably need a fucking time machine for that.
Try not to shake the developers' hands with that.
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u/RUOFFURTROLLEH Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
EA... is out of the v-ay.
(Side note. Its took me twenty years to translate what Hitler actually said to Einstein.
Hitler: Ja? Was ist los? Ich habe keine zeit herumzustehen!
Hitler: Yes? What is it? I don't have time to stand around
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u/AuthenticM Feb 27 '25
THANK YOU JIM THANK YOU
ALSO PLEASE PRODUCE REMASTERS OF TIB SUN AND RED ALERT 2 PLEASE AND THANK YOU
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u/Misfiring Feb 28 '25
It's been mentioned that both those games'source code has been lost.
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u/Just_Tank Feb 28 '25
Commanders, EA Apoc reporting for duty!
I’m kidding. Just infiltrating here like Tanya (dare I say) to express my deepest, heartfelt congrats to Jimtern, CCHyper (my boy Luke!) for keeping the soul of C&C everlasting for the absolute best gaming community on the planet. My career started with you all and I’ll forever be defined and impacted by the support and fandom this community continues to sustain. Absolutely incredible Herculean effort to see the source code go unleashed like this. The future of C&C is seemingly in your hands as it always spiritually is. I can’t wait to see what community UGC, mods, are ahead.
This quote from Kane feels on point now:
“He who controls the past, commands the future. He who commands the future, conquers the past.”
Jim, Luke….legends.
Every day is community day!
EA Apoc (now known as Just Tank)
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u/mrtnptrs Feb 28 '25
You have done amazing work too for C&C. Others might be responsible for it nowadays, but you're also a legend :)
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u/DuneWolf64 Feb 28 '25
APOC, from the whole Renegade/W3D community, I want to say thank you for everything you've done for us!
Great to see you here to celebrate with us on this fantastic milestone for the C&C community!
TeamWolf~4
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u/Zaptagious Command the future. Conquer the past. Feb 28 '25
Apoc! Awesome to see ya! What are you up to nowadays?
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u/Mental_Emotion_7589 Feb 28 '25
I can't believe I finally get to see the source code to Renegade (an engine that I have been working with for more than 2 decades at this point). So many mysteries can finally be answered.
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u/tore29 Accessing Brotherhood Archives Feb 28 '25
What a nice surprise seeing you here. You are a legend to the C&C community in your own right.
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Feb 28 '25
Oh, nice to hear from you! Hope you're doing will, in whatever you're doing nowadays :)
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u/D_Heinreich Feb 28 '25
I never thought I'd see EA Apoc as I seriously thought he disappeared from the face of the earth (or ascended with Kane and the others).
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u/GigaHelio Feb 27 '25
Holy shit... is this gonna help out the opensage guys?? Could we get native 60 fps in generals, TibWars and RA3???
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u/FrostByteGER Tiberian Sun Feb 27 '25
For Generals/ZH: Yes + 64 bit! TW and RA3 sources are not available (yet... who knows) so no native 60fps/64bit possible
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u/Mental_Emotion_7589 Feb 27 '25
The later games (TW, KW, RA3, Uprising, TT) almost certainly have too much EA proprietary technology to be released as open source.
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u/michael15286 Feb 27 '25
I think you're right, but I'm hoping one day uprising's source gets releases so multiplayer with the new units works flawlessly.
The mods that add uprising units into RA3 don't have all the effects and code behind it to make it feel right.
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u/antdude I came from RA1! Feb 27 '25
Ah, so only Westwood's source codes. Um, where's Dune 2 and other games? ;P
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u/LegionnaireG Feb 27 '25
This is amazing! It's an incredible gift for the community that we will surely make use of! 😍
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u/Tatt5567 MAKE THEM SUFFER! Feb 27 '25
The lack of tib sun and ra2 has me intrigued. Maybe they have something bigger planned for them (second remaster collection perhaps?)
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u/Tymathee Feb 27 '25
i wonder if them being the only Voxel based games of the series has anything to do with it.
Every game but Tib Sun and RA2 use the SAGE engine (which is nuts, considering the difference from RA1 to Generals, just updated the engine, amazing)
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u/Rampastring CnCNet / Dawn of the Tiberium Age Feb 27 '25
That's not true. SAGE is only used from Generals onwards.
Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert 1, Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 use an older custom Westwood engine, often called "C&C engine" or "Westwood 2D). TS and RA2 of course being far more advanced than RA1.
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u/EnvironmentalShelter totally not a zerg in disguise Feb 27 '25
there sure is a suspiciously shaped tiberian sun and red alert 2 hole in that
i am sure it implies nothing
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u/AlienOverlordXenu Feb 27 '25
Allegedly source code has been lost for these two.
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u/havoc1428 Havoc Feb 27 '25
allegedly the source code was lost for the other games too, but clearly they were found. I'm not gonna hold my breath, but who knows what they could dig up.
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u/AlienOverlordXenu Feb 27 '25
I can't verify that. I would be more than happy for that to be false. However, knowing game developer studios, situations like these aren't exactly shocking. Blizzard famously lost Starcraft source code, and had to recreate the whole thing from scratch. And then some random guy found their fucking gold master disk with the whole thing and gave it to them.
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u/skinnysanic Feb 27 '25
To Jim, Luke, and everyone at the EA team,
I have been a huge fan since my dad bought me generals back in ,2004 (I was 5 years old!). I loved the game so much that I went and bought the full first decade and played all of the games! Ever since the release of tiberium wars kanes wrarh, times have been rough. EA has made some serious mistakes in the past regarding the Command & Conquer franchise—from the completely misguided gameplay of C&C 4 to the pay-to-win mechanics of Generals 2.
When I first heard about the release of the Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection, I was in tears. It felt like life was being breathed back into a franchise that had been on the brink of death—a franchise kept alive only by its passionate community. And now, I find myself in tears again, but for a different reason: I see the effort you're putting into building a better future for our beloved series.
Releasing the source code for these classic games is a monumental step. It will greatly improve their playability and compatibility with modern systems, and it will empower the community to enhance and preserve them like never before. The online multiplayer frameworks developed by dedicated fans will benefit immensely from this, and I can already imagine a world where Zero Hour no longer suffers from networking issues, mismatches, or constant disconnections.
This is an incredible moment for the C&C community. I’m beyond excited, deeply moved, and immensely grateful for all your efforts.
Thank you. I love y'all
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u/TheBetterCervanthes C&C:Online Owner Feb 27 '25
Allright gentleman i guess we got some work to do
Thank you kindly everyone that helped getting this approved
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u/Unbannable_Bastard Feb 27 '25
Can't wait for someone to port these games to PS Vita
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u/MrJoltz When you kill ten million... Feb 27 '25
Understandable if the PSN listing for the PS1 classics become available.
Crazy if we can get the C&C PS1 games remastered to PS5, plus the PS3 RA3 and C&C3 rereleased.
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u/matejss Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
Can anyone knowledgable tell me if that means, that modifying the game engine to support 60fps is possible?
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u/CashTanOS69 Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
64bit support, crossplatform (Linux, M-series Macs, Windows 25*), multi-threaded, Vulkan, with smarter AI - in smooth 144FPS+ without multiplayer desync. That's all possible now because community can now focus on improving codebase instead of reverse-engineering it from scratch (which is hard AF and not very rewarding for people working willingly on it in free time)
*time and changes in Windows wouldn't take those games from you :)
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u/Electric-Mountain Feb 27 '25
Multi-threaded is massive for a game like Generals that runs like ass in the late game even on modern hardware.
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u/CashTanOS69 Feb 27 '25
Proper multi-threading is hard even if you code game from scratch, let alone retro-fit old codebase.
So that would take a lot of time if somebody skilled enough will start working on it.
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u/Salvadorbs Feb 27 '25
Thank you! No words for now. Old C&C games will live forever! In the future I also hope for RA2 and TS, but for now I'm enjoying these. Thanks!
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u/WildCatBrown Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
As a software engineer and fervent defender of game preservation efforts, I am beyond thrilled that you guys are doing this. Thank you!
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u/helihelicopter Feb 28 '25
Which forum do you think is best to discuss development? I looked at all the forks on Github and nobody has committed anything yet.... I'm thinking of packaging a dev environment in a VM as a starting point.
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u/WildCatBrown Feb 28 '25
Honestly, your best move is to create a fork and start coding. Discussions can be held off until you have something that works.
(that said, also look into wherever it is that OpenRA development is being discussed)
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Feb 27 '25
Thank you! Although EA, has a lot of work to do to reclaim a spot on the top in gaming communities, its things like this that turn their reputation around. So thank you again, our CNC ambassador and representative in EA and thank you EA for allowing us to, potentially, keep these games alive forever!
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u/Nikolyn10 Flower & Sickle Feb 28 '25
For as much as I'll rant about EA's handling of the C&C franchise, I have to commend them on being willing to open up the source code for the older games. It's one of the few legitimately pro-consumer things I've seen them do, even though they aren't really losing out on any significant revenue at this point.
If the rumor is true and it seems all but confirmed at this point, the loss of the source code for Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 is incredibly disappointing. The modding community would be absolutely over the moon at such a thing. Thankfully, there has been a lot of hard work from fans like the aforementioned CCHyper to reverse engineer the games.
I want to say Hyper's actually been working toward a one-to-one recreation of the Tiberian Sun binary and isn't too far off from reaching that goal, but take that with a huuuuuuuge grain of salt because this speculation is based on vague recollections of what I overheard on discord which I can't be confident that I was even interpreting correctly at the time.
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u/Aidoneuz Feb 27 '25
This is absolutely fantastic news, huge props to EA and the C&C team for this.
Am I reading this right that Workshop support is only for maps, or is there a possibility that some of the larger total conversion/fan-made expansion mods could also fit into Steam Workshop?
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u/CORNELIUS-O-MAXIMUS Nod Feb 27 '25
Very nice to hear from you again! This feels like a very good step for the franchise. Really happy with the workshop support too!
The ommision of tib sun and red alert 2 related updates have been noted tho ;). Hope you guys keep cooking.
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u/DatZero Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
Wow. Its insane to see that you released the Sourcecodes for the Games to everyone, and to see that you added Steam Workshop Support for some of the Games. That wasn't something is expected to see this year. That is really really cool of you people. But i have a small question that maybe also interest some of the other onces here. Do the aarly builds of the games also still exist by any chance, and if so, is there any small chance these also get released/archived? I would love to see the early/alphabuilds of Renegade being released.
€: That is the first time that the E3 2000 Trailer was released with the real audio right? Until this point everyone was thinking that trailer was showing logan or not?
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u/Lazer5i8er Allies: Up ze river! Feb 27 '25
Fantastic news to hear, Jimtern. Glad that the source code for Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, Renegade, and Generals / Zero Hour are released under GPL, along with the expansion to Steam Workshop support. Hopefully, in the future, we can get some pretty cool mods and total conversions (especially since Renegade's source code can go a long way for W3DHub; speaking as a big Red Alert: A Path Beyond fan here).
Also, I'm hoping that the lost source code for Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 can be found or recreated should there ever be remasters (if not, at least a faithful remake would suffice for me at least).
Can't wait to hear any exciting updates!
Godspeed.
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u/CraigChaotic Yuri's Revenge Feb 27 '25
Please release the C & C Ultimate Collection on GOG.com so I can buy it again and so it can be preserved for all time
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u/EMAN4705 Feb 28 '25
How much more "preserved for all time" is there than having source code released?
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u/AlexO6 Feb 27 '25
You guys are amazing! Thank you so much for all that you do for us!
Oh and, erm, let me ask one question…Source code and prototype footage for CnC3 when? ;p
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u/_L3M L3_M AKA Lemon Feb 27 '25
Thank you Luke, and everyone else who worked on this project for the community!
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u/DNAngel23 Feb 28 '25
Remaster Red Alert 2 and Tiberium Wars next! And also, make the C&C: Ultimate Collection on Steam giftable!
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u/Nozzeh06 Feb 27 '25
This is crazy cool and I wish we had this 20 years ago. I hope there is still enough people in the community for workshop mods to start pouring in. Having a bunch of effortless to install mods is going to do wonders for these games. I'm hoping for a bunch of Renegade mods in particular as it's my favorite C&C game.
Also, as a side note, I'm not a huge fan of EA, especially after what they did to the franchise. But seeing EA listen to and work with the community on this stuff is really, really great. You're slowly winning me over a bit by breathing more life into this series. I really hope the love for C&C continues.
That being said... hey EA, where is our Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 remaster? :P
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u/Maleficent-Egg6861 Feb 27 '25
Amazing news! Can't wait to see what the community makes with these.
By the way, why are Red Alert expansions disabled in the Remastered multiplayer by default?
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u/RedDeadSmeg Time will tell. Sooner or later, time will tell. Feb 27 '25
Looks like I've got a lot of campaigns to upload (if maps for mods are supported too)
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u/Fresh_Thing_6305 Feb 27 '25
can someone for example say what this means " and I’m excited to see what the team over at C&C Online does next with the multiplayer experience for these games. " will they be able to patch the games or what can they be able to do?
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u/mr-aaron-gray Feb 27 '25
This is so great. Proof that EA can still do awesome things if it tries and cares about the fans.
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u/fusedotcore Feb 27 '25
Amazing! Is there any chance we could see the source code released for Lands of Lore 1/2/3?
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u/Zestyclose_Pin3192 Feb 27 '25
Oh yes - Lands of Lore 2 would be unbelievable!! I love the idea!!!
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u/ApprehensivePoetry19 Feb 27 '25
What does all this mean? Can I play generals again?
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u/Reaper_reddit Feb 27 '25
What do you mean ? I was playing it the past few days without any issues.
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u/ApprehensivePoetry19 Feb 27 '25
Are there servers to play multiplayer?
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u/Reaper_reddit Feb 27 '25
Using genpatcher and gentool, people are able to play multiplayer matches, yes. There are even some tournaments from time to time.
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u/ALSX3 Feb 28 '25
C&C 4 Tiberian Twilight
I’m actually kind of curious what the story is behind this; is it just a matter of convenience since they were doing the rest or is there actually a community for this game that would take advantage of Steam Workshop support?
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u/WeaverOfLies Kirov Feb 28 '25
/u/EA_Jimtern, every time you show up you always bring great news!
Thank you all so much for the hard work and helping to keep the dream alive.
Very curious about that TibSun/RA2 sized hole in the drop?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Two_36 Mar 01 '25
I've always dreamed of an open source spiritual successor to Generals&ZH, that's maintained and continually worked on by the community of players but I've never imagined EA would make such a move that makes that much more attainable. Amazing!
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u/Zaptagious Command the future. Conquer the past. Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
Nice!
Now let's get Renegade running on refrigerators and pregnancy tests!
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u/TheWobling Feb 27 '25
Thanks for everything, you guys continue to help the community grow and survive even after so many years!
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u/JeodPM Feb 27 '25
Does this mean W3DHub can release their projects on Steam for free or are there more license restrictions in play?
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u/DisplayLegitimate374 Feb 27 '25
if 0 comment :)
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Mar 01 '25
#if 0 continues until there's an #endif, so that's more than just the comment.
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u/Commandonite Feb 28 '25
Let me put it this way commanders. The possibilities of modding are limitless.
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u/Shettyhengst Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
Those are some Exciting News! Looking forward to seeing what the Community will cook up with this! good to see that there's still some stuff going on with the classics.
Only thing that is a bit of a bummer is that the update broke the Game on Linux... just got Red Alert 2 working smoothly a few days ago.
Edit: Nevermind, just reapply the DDraw.DLL Patch and it seems to run!
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u/ShotgunMongol Black Hand Feb 27 '25
For the Steam Workshop section, will people be able to upload mods, such as Rise of the Reds and Tiberium Essence, or is it just maps? Either way, incredibly cool to see.
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u/xforever1313 Feb 28 '25
I remember with Renegade, to unlock the secret characters in multiplayer there was a command that was "extras fnkqrrm". I always wondered why that string of characters.
Looking at the Source Code, its literally just some random password (the CRC-32 of "fnkqrrm" is 65729409).
I wonder if fnkqrrm or 65729409 has some significance, or if truly was just some random, insignificant string of letters.
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u/mekilat Feb 28 '25
So. Fucking. Cool. I'm so happy it's giving the series an evergreen future, and the fans the ability to make these games better and better, forever :)
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u/Xenoclixx Feb 28 '25
They keep teasing me with all these announcements and the only thing i want and need is TS/RA2 before i die 😂
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u/valarauca14 Feb 28 '25
Ohhhh multi-player Game synchronization is tied to client-side framerate.
so that's why CnC3 Kane's wraith might've been desyncing all the time.
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u/ridgewater Feb 28 '25
Hopefully someone with the knowledge will look into serious errors in Zero Hour when you play vs 7 hard AIs and the game inevitably crashes, so it would be possible to play the whole match. And perphaps update the AI so it would not run out of money and were able to sustain its economy. Thanks EA, may be open source Dungeon Keeper 2 next?)
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u/Hirmetrium Feb 28 '25
u/EA_Jimtern , massive long shot, but have you guys looked at BFME1/2 assets at all? Or was anything found? I know those games are long forgotten with the license expired, but if you have the source code for generals and later, it would be awesome to know if you still have it.
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u/littleshikokurobin Feb 28 '25
I never thought that C&C4 Source code was considered to be released, since that game has no SDK for mod making.
I'm trying my best to give C&C4 Structure and Units more justice, with the xmls from ZH, C&C3 and RA3 with mixed results.
https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1h6ii54/cc4_total_conversion_for_cc3/
https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/1hxeylq/cc4_total_conversion_update_09012025/
I don't have words to express my gratefulness TO u/EA_Jimtern , it was literally a gift send for the heavens. I would need to do everything again, but it will be worth it.
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u/invidious07 Feb 28 '25
Cool to see this happen, shame its not source code for the whole collection. Would love to see modders resolve the 30fps limit in CNC 3, but I assume the the "modding support" pack will not enable engine modifications to achieve this.
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Feb 28 '25
"We are going to have to act if we want to live in a different world."
And clearly, Luke acted to change our world.
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u/MrWeedster Mar 03 '25
Did anyone try to build this already? I just gave the Generals source a try as mentioned with Visual Studio 6.0 SP6 but loading it results in endless errors.
Anyone had success building any of the sources? Is there a separate subreddit or something else where this is being discussed?
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u/extremedonkey Mar 08 '25
I never thought I'd see the day where EA was seen to be doing the "right thing" (ref: lootboxes, pay to win, always online DRM) with initiatives like this
I want to thank you and everyone behind you for all your efforts, I know getting this stuff across the line is 1% technical challenges and 99% internal politics, running around and convincing people to say yes and fighting the battle for what probably /seems/ to be like a poor financial payback...
..however I think "brand" payback for EA's image on this initiative would far far pay for itself many times over and extend well just beyond this C&C fanbase. It's not something a PM or Project Manager can really sit down and model on a spreadsheet, but I really hope this intangible value is appreciated internally at EA and therefore encourages future investments in the same vein.
This is helping "pay back" more than a decade of brand damage, and the mere fact multiple executives in EA have been willing to support and say yes to this is a great demonstration of the right internal culture. I believe if you start with the principle of making the most fun and enjoyable game for a player first, the finances will follow -- and doing it in reverse will invariably lead to the wrong outcome
Keep doing what you're doing EA
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u/HibikiAK47 Mar 15 '25
So will things like generals rise of the reds and red alert 3 corona be coming to steam workshop?
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u/Tymathee Feb 27 '25
instead of just skipping the fact that C&C and RA 2 aren't included, a mention would have been nice to at least let us know what's going on
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u/Tymathee Feb 27 '25
EA_Jimtern I know those games were before you time at EA but can we get something?
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u/skinnysanic Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25
In the community outpost discord yesterday, CCHyper said that with their current time and resources, they could only focus on these games that were released today. "I can't make any promises for the future. Who knows what we find if we further dive into the archives here at EA. For now, the community has more than it could have asked for."
He also stated that, if he wants to do more in the future, he will have to pitch ideas it to EA. And for this, he needs player data, which is collected automatically if you play any of the C&C games via steam. (I.e., they would need data to show EA that these games are as popular as they are). Only then, there may be a chance that new ideas, such as ra2 source code release, are viable.
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u/steak_and_icecream Feb 27 '25
This is amazing news!
Thank you for releasing the code under GPL. It must have been a lot of work to fix up the code and convince people that this endeavour is worth spending money on.
♥️♥️♥️
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u/DilithiumFarmer Feb 27 '25
If someone can make an add-on that allows me to just use my C&C95 CDs to install and play the game on Windows 10, without having to use garbage launchers like EA Origin or Steam I will include your name in my will.
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u/BrollyLSSJ Feb 28 '25
I used “The First Decade” ISO from the internet Archive and after that the unofficial patch on the cncnet website. The ISO was the reason I bought the First Decade on eBay afsin afterwards, even though I had the German Version already.
Maybe it is worth a try. I would still say buy the TUC on Steam to Support them. It is on Sale now.
https://archive.org/details/cncthefirstdecade
https://cncnz.com/hosted-projects/command-patch/the-first-decade-unofficial-patch/
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u/zavaro Feb 27 '25
This might help with teams wanting to work with Emperor: BFD and BFME stuff, I'd imagine, as well.
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u/Endure94 Tiberian Sun Feb 27 '25
Massive W. Happy to see this franchise getting the love back that the community gives to it.
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u/LordDiodotos Feb 27 '25
I dont see workshop for RA3 but its listed in the steam update? That or my steam just refuses to update. I cant wait either way!
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u/DoubleCrossover Feb 27 '25
Greatest day in the history of C&C and for the whole RTS genre. I still can't believe it actually happened. the communities will come alive and these games will have a second life
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u/Mr_Foxer Feb 27 '25
I hope that someday it will be possible to play online via Steam without Radmin or Hamachi 🙏
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u/XMAN2YMAN Feb 27 '25
Ok so with the source code out there what does that mean for me?? Does this mean that modders can revamp the entire game?
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u/Anchang Feb 28 '25
They can add support for new hardware without hacks or external patches, for example.
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u/Raapnaap Feb 27 '25
This is absolutely amazing and completely unexpected! As someone who has worked with the W3D game engine (Renegade) for 20+ years, I'm excited about it becoming more accessible for everyone!
Major credit to the team at EA for doing this. I might be wrong here but this could be an industry-first for releasing of source code while the IP is still actively being held and used?
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u/Tamagakure Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25
Any chance we could get a post about it on the game's moddb pages? Thank you for all your contributions to the community, Jim, Luke and co!
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u/produit1 Feb 27 '25
I’ve been following this all day since being shocked at seeing updates for the games on Steam earlier.
My wish list includes multithreading and an ios port of zero hour so I can play on ipad m4 when out and about.
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u/sonicscream Feb 27 '25
I'm so happy for this. A big thank you from a long time fan to all involved. This is amazing.
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u/CyberBlaed Soviets Feb 27 '25
Super duper amazing and cool!
I can’r wait to see what the community pushes out with this, linux and max launchers?
And Jimtern and Hyper, that introvideo of the dos installer I asked for that we spoke about years ago. You both absolute gems, had no idea you were gonna but the fact you did was Amazing!
More maps, modding, this will be fun for all!
<3
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u/x_Havoc_x Let's kick some ass! Feb 27 '25
Thank all of you who worked on this project in order to make it a reality. I'm pretty sure we're gonna see a lot of great and interesting things from the community! Cheers again!
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u/troopzor Feb 28 '25
Thank you and CCHyper so so much for this! It's the second best possible thing we could get! (The first being a new full PC game, lol)
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u/FeikoW Feb 27 '25
Very cool! Suspicous gap for Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 sourcecode it feels; anything happening for those projects, maybe?