Far Cry's source code has been uploaded to the Internet Archive

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: Ubisoft's seminal Far Cry is less than a year away from its 20th anniversary, but it seems someone wanted to celebrate the occasion a bit early. An Internet Archive user by the name of Llaetha.ro uploaded the source code for Ubisoft's classic first-person shooter to the digital library on June 24. The file name suggests it is version 1.34 of the game, meaning it likely already has several patches implemented.

Initial reports claimed the dump wasn't complete but according to Twitter user Vinícius Medeiros, the engine binaries and DLLs can be compiled. Rock Paper Shotgun adds that this means the source code could be used to run the game in a debug mode and modify things at a deeper level.

Out of nowhere, the full source code of Far Cry 1 just dropped on the Internet Archive pic.twitter.com/agRMPHLT6o

– Vinícius Medeiros (@VinciusMedeiro6) June 30, 2023

The game's assets are also missing, but those can apparently be extracted from the full game.

It's anyone's guess as to who is behind the source code leak or why they decided to release it now, nearly 20 years after the game first came out.

PC Gamer pointed to a Discord community where members were claiming the leak originated from a former Crytek employee that shared the code with a few friends to "study." The former employee was reportedly going to make it available at a later date, but apparently one of his pals beat him to it. Take that with a grain of salt.

Also see: Nearly 20 Years of Far Cry

It'll be interesting to see what gamers manage to do with the source code now that it is readily available. Equally as alluring will be Ubisoft's response.

As of writing, the company hasn't issued a public statement on the matter. Should the game maker give enthusiasts its blessing, we could see a whole new level of user mods. RTX, anyone? If Ubisoft decides to dig its heels in and take legal action, well… don't expect nearly as many user-created mods.

If nothing else, we can be sure that Far Cry's source code won't be lost (remember Blizzard's mishap with Diablo II?)

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/99298-far-cry-source-code-has-uploaded-internet-archive.html

 

[Bruno M. Villar]

If I were ubisoft owner I would implement a store to sell new assets for modders. Would make billions.

 

[Branch]

First game using foliage to actually hide you from enemies.
Those mercs were great.

 

[gamerk2]

Two things I'm noting from the provided screenshots as a SW Engineer:

1: I *hate* the inconsistent tabbing of the comments; please please please use whatever feature your IDE has to convert tabs into x spaces, to avoid mismatched lines like that.

2: Note there are different project files for the Xbox and PC, which while not shocking also indicates how much source code is shared between the two (honesty, probably just a few project files are different; the "core" logic should be 95% identical between the two).

 

[ferrellsl]

I hope this leads to source ports for Linux systems like we've seen for Half-Life 2, dhewm3, quake2xp, etc....I have an Orange Pi 5 that would run Far Cry quite well if it gets ported.

 

[pcnthuziast]

The first game is the only real Far Cry. After that they used the name, but with no connection to the original game whatsoever. The original game is dope to this day. Challenging af too.

 

[RaXelliX]

The first game is the only real Far Cry. After that they used the name, but with no connection to the original game whatsoever. The original game is dope to this day. Challenging af too.

Indeed. The hardest difficulty is like Dark Souls now. Also Far Cry was a breath of fresh air both literally and figuratively considering that most FPS games before were dark, yellow-brownish corridor shooters.

And I know people hated the voiced protagonist but I quite liked the fact that he was not a silent blank slate as is the case with most games.

 

[ZedRM]

If Ubisoft was smart, they would just run with this and give the modding community their blessing while pushing the sale of the game on all the platforms it's on.

So the question is, will Ubisoft be smart? Or will they double-down on their typical draconian-like BS?...

We shall see.

 

[HardReset]

If Ubisoft was smart, they would just run with this and give the modding community their blessing while pushing the sale of the game on all the platforms it's on.

So the question is, will Ubisoft be smart? Or will they double-down on their typical draconian-like BS?...

We shall see.

Well, for Far Cry 2-6 Ubisoft told they won't offer real mod support or tools but do not prevent modding either. And there are indeed quite lot mods for those games.

Unlike some other games where almost everything is some way encrypted or other way unmoddable.