We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

The excellent open source RTS game engine OpenRA [Official Site], which allows you to play classic Command & Conquer titles has a new release out.

As a reminder, it currently supports Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert and Dune 2000 officially. They're working on Tiberian Sun, which is one of their current major goals with the project. It's taking a long time though, since it's quite different to the other games. For the existing games, it will download the required content for you since they were set free by EA years ago.

The first major change, is that it will now allow you to hook up a forum account to your game:

Connecting to your OpenRA forum account allows you to verify your identity to other players without revealing your IP address. You can also choose to display up to five badges, with a selection of default options and custom awards available to choose from. Server hosts can configure private clan or tournament servers based on accounts instead of using passwords.

Naturally, I tested this out and it works perfectly. My choice of badge to display was an obvious one:

An interesting system, which I am glad is kept as an optional feature. Not everyone wants to sign up for an account for everything, just to play a quick game with friends.

They've also moved over to using AppImage for the Linux downloads, which does simplify it a bit. One download for every Linux distribution that should just work. I certainly had no trouble when trying it out this evening.

Some other highlights of this latest release:

  • Significant improvements to rendering performance and unit responsiveness
  • Descriptive tooltips for tech structures
  • Tech structures and walls remain on the battlefield if their owner is defeated
  • Overhauled Chronoshift-return behaviour in Red Alert
  • Disabled Kill Bounties in the Red Alert campaign and default multiplayer configuration
  • Fixes for several crashes and gameplay bugs in release-20180307
  • A collection of community balance changes in Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn

They also improved their SDK that allows others to build games with the OpenRA game engine. This actually includes the ability to make an AppImage, so custom games and mods should have an easier time to support Linux too—nice!

They also spruced up their online game list, so you can check if there's games going without even loading the game up—handy!

I am incredibly happy this project exists, since I played a lot of Red Alert and the original Command & Conquer in my youth. We've had a good few games in the community too, we just don't talk about the time Samsai got nuked.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
8 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
4 comments

gojul Sep 24, 2018
Too bad they do not provide Debian / RPM / ... packages anymore...
theghost Sep 24, 2018
Quoting: gojulToo bad they do not provide Debian / RPM / ... packages anymore...

Maybe it helps you that there is a snap: https://snapcraft.io/openra
and a flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/net.openra.OpenRA

Although I don't know how up-to-date the repositories are...
nullzero Sep 25, 2018
Quoting: theghost
Quoting: gojulToo bad they do not provide Debian / RPM / ... packages anymore...

Maybe it helps you that there is a snap: https://snapcraft.io/openra
and a flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/net.openra.OpenRA

Although I don't know how up-to-date the repositories are...

The snap, though it was updated 4 days ago (Sep 22), is version 20180307. The previous stable release.

The flatpack version I can't see it directly in the website. Is there a quick way to find out without downloading?

EDIT: formating.


Last edited by nullzero on 25 September 2018 at 9:48 pm UTC
theghost Oct 10, 2018
Quoting: nullzero
Quoting: theghost
Quoting: gojulToo bad they do not provide Debian / RPM / ... packages anymore...

Maybe it helps you that there is a snap: https://snapcraft.io/openra
and a flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/net.openra.OpenRA

Although I don't know how up-to-date the repositories are...

The snap, though it was updated 4 days ago (Sep 22), is version 20180307. The previous stable release.

The flatpack version I can't see it directly in the website. Is there a quick way to find out without downloading?

EDIT: formating.

The snap is still outdated by today:
https://github.com/diddlesnaps/openra/blob/master/snap/snapcraft.yaml

I rechecked the Flatpak. It was already up to date when the article was written:
https://github.com/flathub/net.openra.OpenRA/commit/edb29c81f3dc5181ea26b697c581640940b0753d

So it seems the Flatpak seems a pretty good solution for fast updates.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.