OpenRA VS spring

Recently, my friends and I recreated our old LAN parties. Went up to a cabin in the woods, brought some cheap network switches, and had everyone install OpenRA (https://www.openra.net/, open red alert), and had a blast, even with everyone on laptops (mac/win). You can still do this in 2024 and it's worth it!

After the movies, I wanted to experience Dune 2 again (the pirate sites have it, along with patches to make it playable on modern OSes or Crossover). It was arguably the first mass-market real-time strategy game. There's also OpenRA for C&C, Red Alert, and Dune 2K: https://www.openra.net/

I understand Square is re-making FF7 in a multi-part release over several years (not sure why it takes so long)? https://ffvii-remake-intergrade.square-enix-games.com/en-us/ Once it's all out, I might play through that again just for nostalgia's sake (and for the soundtrack, of course! Twenty years later, I still have Aeris's Theme stuck in my head from time to time)

Obligatory reminder:Red Alert,Command & Conquer, Dune 2000, Rebuilt for the Modern Era.

https://www.openra.net/

I recently found an open source version that has been fun (https://www.openra.net/).

You can import those from ISOs: https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Game-Content but the campaign is not complete afaik as it needs to be re-built in OpenRA: https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/4989 (I think this is the related ticket)

Alternatively OpenRA has a bunch of C&C inspired mods: https://www.openra.net I think this way is the easiest way to get a C&C like experience on a M1 Mac right now.

www.openra.net

Recoil (previously called Spring) - https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/spring

If you want to develop the engine https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/spring, checkout GitHub wiki of that repository which contains compile instructions with docker, without and for MSVC setup.

Many current BAR developers are old BA devs. Many old BA players are current BAR players. Then also the engine fork happened (Recoil) (https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/spring) for similar reason as above, and Recoil+BAR currently receive the most active development, with other Spring RTS games like Zero-K also migrating to Recoil.

All is about providing a correct start script for each player: https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/spring/blob/BAR105/doc/StartScriptFormat.txt

Yes, it's using continuously developed fork (https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/spring) of the Spring RTS engine.

Well, my personal preference is for Zero-K/Spring, because I actually like micro :

http://zero-k.info/

But BAR/Spring seems like it would fit you better (it's also the closest of them to TA, which is otherwise a bit old these days) :

https://www.beyondallreason.info/

(BAR used to stand for Balanced Annihilation Reloaded, while Zero-K used to be called Complete Annihilation.)

Still a number of active projects where the game (or variations of it) are being played. Check out Beyond All Reason