The past year has brought several exciting new developments, which we are happy to share today with a new OpenRA playtest!
The headline new feature in playtest-20260222 are the new random map generators for Red Alert, Tiberian Dawn, and Dune 2000. These work much like you would expect: select a biome, the number of players, and some details about symmetry and resources, then play! Generated maps work both in Skirmish and Multiplayer.
Dune 2000 has received a glow-up, featuring new visual effects for the Sonic Tank and damaged structures, along with the long-awaited “bulk purchase” logic for the Starport. The update includes a complete, community-led balance overhaul for skirmish and multiplayer modes. Meanwhile, the single-player campaign receives its own difficulty adjustments to ease the learning curve.
Support for the C&C Remastered Collection assets in Tiberian Dawn reached two important milestones in the (currently) standalone Tiberian Dawn HD mod. The mod is now feature-complete, with new HD sprites for the last custom assets plus a new content manager that allows you to select between remastered or classic artwork, audio, and music. Significant progress has been made towards integrating these features into the core OpenRA Tiberian Dawn – while this release still remains a standalone mod, we hope to complete the merge in the next release.
This is another big release for our map-making community, with further UI improvements to the OpenRA map editor, and new tools that take advantage of the random map generator logic.
Other noteable changes include:
- Added new “Other RTS” mouse input mode.
- Added timed auto-save settings for missions/skirmish.
- Bots will now attempt to build expansion bases.
- Further progress towards supporting localisation in a future release.
- Added a new mission each for Red Alert and Tiberium Dawn.
- Many other bug fixes and minor performance optimisations.
As always, the full changelog is available with more information on the changes and fixes. Stay tuned for more updates and be sure to take part in the playtest. Don’t forget to share your feedback with us on our forum, community Discord server, or GitHub!