Heads up, commander: the Command & Conquer source code is open, and it is not a forum rumor. EA itself put everything on the Electronic Arts GitHub, under the GPL v3 license with some additional terms. Let us go through what came out, what you can do with it and what still needs your own copy.
2020: the first step with the Remastered Collection
Alongside the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection in 2020, EA opened the code of the TiberianDawn.dll and RedAlert.dll libraries and the map editor. The idea was to power up mods on the Steam Workshop. But to use what you compile, you have to own the game.
February 2025: the whole codebase
In February 2025 came the big package: the code for Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, Renegade and Generals with Zero Hour, each in its own repository. The repositories are archived, which means EA does not accept contributions there. Anyone who wants to change things makes a fork.
Does it compile? Sort of
The Red Alert README itself warns that the code does not fully compile as it is. To restore the original setup it asks for Watcom C/C++ 10.6 and Borland Turbo Assembler 4.0, and several old libraries, such as the DirectX 5 SDK, have to be replaced. And again: to use the binaries, you need to own the game. The C&C Ultimate Collection is sold on the EA app and Steam.
The community wasted no time
The TheSuperHackers group took the Generals and Zero Hour code and keeps fixing bugs and modernizing the game, with repository updates as recently as this week. There is also OpenRA, a free engine built from scratch by fans long before this release, which runs the early C&C games on current PCs.
Want to know the difference between a port, a recompilation and emulation? We have a piece on browser, native port and emulation. There is more in our guide to games ported to the browser and PC and the Preservation section.
Where to buy: Command and Conquer on Amazon
Source: Electronic Arts.
