Electronic Arts has been released to a community of modders who like to release source code for commands and conquests and design new levels of vintage real-time strategy games.
It’s a good move for the community, but EA also teaches me when I grew up there is no real way to make solid revenue for people with popular real-time strategy brands. That part makes me sad, but it’s worth facing reality.
Jim Vessella, C&C producer at EA, said the company launched the C&C Ultimate Collection on Steam last year. While this was a positive step towards maintaining the legacy of command and conquest, he said EA always has ambitions to bring more C&C franchise improvements to the community.
So, shortly after its launch in 2024, EA commissioned Luke “Cchyper” Feenan, a veteran of the C&C community who was part of the Community Council of the C&C Remaster Collection. Feenan was also involved in bringing the C&C Ultimate Collection back to steam in March 2024.
EA asked Feenan to formally investigate the improvements to many of the games in its ultimate collection. With full access to EA’s C&C archives, Feenan has proposed several ambitious ideas on behalf of the community, and for the past year he has been dedicated to providing these initiatives.
In a statement, Feenan said: “Cchyper.” I am a 20+ year veteran of the C&C community, a longtime modder and a CNCNET administrator. I was also very fortunate to be involved in the development of the C&C Remaster Collection under the guidance of Jim Vesera. ”
Over the past year, he has worked with EA’s C&C stakeholders to bring Perforce Source Code Archives from C&C games back to a buildable state. As a modder for a long time, it was amazing to have the opportunity to dig deep into the source code of these games and see how they work, Feenan said.
It was almost five years ago that EA released the source code for the C&C Remaster Collection DLL file. The release has received praise across the video game industry, allowing the community to create amazing content from its remastered collection. In response to the C&C Archive Repair Process, EA is releasing fully recovered source code for Command & Conquer (aka Tiberia Dawn) and C&C Red Alert under the GPL license.
This empowers people within the community who continue to create content for these classic entries in the franchise, and Feenan hopes that communities like CNCNet will continue to support these games and keep them playable for future generations.
According to Feenan, the W3DHUB community has been doing great things with the C&C Renegade engine for nearly 20 years, and their projects have driven the absolute limits of the game. To help take the game and its fantastic projects to the next level, EA has released the full source code for C&C Renegade under the GPL license.
“We all here are really excited to see what’s next in the W3DHUB community and what we can do with this release,” Feenan said.
And finally, in recognition of the C&C General community, which keeps the game alive with consistent energy and passion, hosts multiplayer tournaments and produces great content, Feenan said he is releasing the full source code under the GPL of C&C Generals and its expansion packs.
“We know that the General/ZH community will do amazing things with this source code release. We look forward to what the C&C Online team will do next in the multiplayer experience of these games,” says Feenan.
EA also said it is enabling Steam Workshop support for more C&C titles so that users can upload custom maps. This has been asking for so long from the community, so EA can ultimately give map creators a permanent home in the official Steam workshop of content.
Currently, Steam Workshop Support is available for C&C Renegade, C&C Generals & Zero Hour, C&C 3 Tiberium Wars, Kane’s Wrath, C&C Red Alert 3 & Uprising, and C&C 4 Tiberian Twilight.
EA also updates all Mission Editor and World Builder tools, allowing you to publish your maps directly to your Steam Workshop. If you subscribe to an item (via client or webpage) in the Steam Workshop, the next time you launch the game, the game will pull down its content and the map will appear in the Single-player/Multiplayer Map Selection menu.
“We’re all looking forward to seeing the fun and crazy maps you upload,” Feenan said.
EA is releasing “”C&C Modification SupportA pack containing source XML, schemas, scripts, shaders, and map files for all games that use the Sage engine. This has been another wish from the community for almost 15 years, so Feenan says he is excited to finally make this happen, and should help the community create amazing content and mods for the next few years.
“We would like to thank all the community play testers who supported us throughout this journey for their valuable feedback and encouragement, as well as everyone who reported bugs and issues with C&C games on Reddit and Steam,” says Feenan. “And of course, to the entire C&C community who has supported these games for over 25 years.”
Feenan thanked the EA team for working in a variety of studios and departments around the world. Their support for this project and the C&C franchise was really motivated during the push for the final launch. He also thanked EA partners and supporters, including technical director Brian Burns and Vesela.
Vessella said that, like his previous modification initiatives, user-generated content for C&C titles is Command & Conquest Franchise Modification Guidelineshas been updated to reflect this initiative. Praise to EA. As we’ve seen recently, the fate of aging game properties is bad.
