Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: Command & Conquer, Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Will Release Command & Conquer Source Code

It appears Electronic Arts will be making some fans very happy as they will be releasing the Command & Conquer source code. The word came down on Reddit today from the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection lead producer Jim Vessella, EA will be releasing the TiberianDawn.dll and RedAlert.dll and their corresponding source code under the GPL version 3.0 license. Which will make C&C one of the first major RTS franchises to provide their source code to users in that fashion. The game itself will be available on June 5th, 2020 for everyone to purchase, but they didn't really go into detail as to when we'd see the code released on the same date or somewhere down the road after some time passed for players to purchase the game and play it. You can read the full details at the link above, but we have a few of the details for you below.

So, what does it mean for Mod Support within the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection? Along with the inclusion of a new Map Editor, these open-source DLLs should assist users to design maps, create custom units, replace art, alter gameplay logic, and edit data. The community council has already been playing with the source code and are posting some fun experiments in our Discord channel. But to showcase a tangible example of what you can do with the software, Petroglyph has actually created a new modded unit to play with. So we asked a fun question – "What would the Brotherhood of Nod do if they captured the Mammoth Tank?" Well, one guess is they'd replace the turret with a giant artillery cannon and have it fire tactical nukes! Thus the Nuke Tank was born. This is a unit which is fully playable in the game via a mod (seen in the screenshot above), and we hope to have it ready to play and serve as a learning example when the game launches.

Alongside Command & Conquer Mod Support, I wanted to be transparent and address a feature which many of you have also been passionate about, which is LAN Play. Earlier this year, we had every intention of including LAN Play in the launch version of the game, but sadly this feature did not make it in time. Unfortunately LAN Play became the key impact of the COVIS-19 situation as we realized the challenge of developing / testing a "local area network" feature in a workplace time of social distancing. We understand this feature is vital as both an avenue to play mods in multiplayer, and also to serve as a backup in case the online systems are ever down. We're bummed this one got away, and will continue to keep this on our priority list going forward.

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