Open Source Takes on Video Game Preservation

You’ve perhaps heard of GOG.com’s game preservation efforts. And that Epic Games has allowed enthusiasts to keep early Unreal games going. And then there are the modernization projects for games like Half-Life and Half-Life 2, including side efforts like Black Mesa. And Atari’s new focus on retro gaming.

But there’s more: Two recent open source projects highlight yet another major game reservation push, in this case to help classic games run well on modern PCs. This isn’t about piracy: In both cases, you have to own the original game. Both are quite interesting.

The first is called openmohaa. This is an “open re-implementation of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault including the Spearhead and Breakthrough expansions with modern features and bugfixes [and] with cross-platform support.” This project just hit a major (beta) milestone which its developers say make the game fully implemented on modern PCs. This includes the single-player campaigns provided by the core game and its two expansions, and even the multiplayer experience. And it’s not just for Windows. It works on Mac and Linux too. And on Windows 11 on Arm (!).

To use openmohaa, you have to own Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and as the developers note, that title is available for $9.99 on GOG.com (and maybe elsewhere). You can learn more on the project’s GitHub page.

There’s also TRX, which is described as an open source implementation of the original two Tomb Raider games. As with openmohaa, there’s a GitHub page for the project, and as with that project, you need the original games, which you can find on GOG.com ($9.99 for both) and Steam ($6.99 each). Tomb Raider 1 works now on Windows, Mac, and Linux, but Tomb Raider 2 is currently Windows-only.

Interesting stuff. I assume there are more projects like this, so let me know if you’re aware of any. And there will be almost certainly others coming in the future as well.