List of commercial video games with available source code
This is a list of commercial video games with available source code. The source code of these commercially developed and distributed video games is available to the public or the games' communities.
Motivation
Commercial video games are typically developed as proprietary closed source software products, with the source code treated as a trade secret. When there is no more expected revenue, these games enter the end-of-life as a product with no support or availability for the game's users and community, becoming abandoned.Description
In several of the cases listed here, the game's developers released the source code expressly to prevent their work from becoming abandonware. Such source code is often released under varying software licenses to the games' communities or the public; artwork and data are often released under a different license than the source code, as the copyright situation is different or more complicated. The source code may be pushed by the developers to public repositories, or given to selected game community members, or sold with the game, or become available by other means. The game may be written in an interpreted language such as BASIC or Python, and distributed as raw source code without being compiled; early software was often distributed in text form, as in the book BASIC Computer Games. In some cases when a game's source code is not available by other means, the game's community "reconstructs" source code from compiled binary files through time-demanding reverse engineering techniques.Source code availability in whatever form allows the games' communities to study how the game works, make modifications, and provide technical support themselves when the official support has ended, e.g. with unofficial patches to fix bugs or source ports to make the game compatible with new platforms.
Games with instantly included source code
Games with later released source code
Games with available source code
The table below with available source code resulted not from official releases by companies or IP holders but from unclear release situations, like lost & found and leaks of unclear legality or undeleted content.| Title | Original release | Source code found or leaked | Genre | Original developer | Additional information |
| ' | 1999 | 2020 | Racing | Smart Dog | The PlayStation source code can be found in a dummy file on the disc. |
| Actua Soccer 96 | 1996 | 1996 | sports game | Gremlin Interactive | A demo CD that shipped with a game magazine accidentally contained the C++ source code of the game. |
| Adventure in Time | 1981 | 2016 | Adventure game | Phoenix Software | In November 2016 the source code for the Atari 8-bit and Apple II versions of Adventure in Time and Birth of the Phoenix were released by Kevin Savetz, along with partial code of Queen of Phobos for Apple II. |
| Airforce Delta | 2000 | 2020 | Flight simulator | Climax Studios | Source code of the Game Boy Color version was leaked on 4chan in May 2020. |
| Aliens versus Predator 2 | 2001 | 2002 | FPS | Monolith Productions | Source code released on the Monolith Productions FTP server in 2002, then quickly taken down. |
| Asteroids | 1979 | 1996 | Arcade | Atari | Source code of Asteroids in the Atari 7800 version was released in physical form by Atari Sunnyvale on their closure 1996. Together with Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and eight further games reconstructed by the Atari-Museum and published later. Ports for modern FPGAs were made later. |
| Art of Fighting | 1992 | 2014 | Fighting game | SNK | The source code was found on an NEC PC-9821 used for developing Neo Geo titles in 2014. |
| Aztec | 1982 | 2019 | Action-adventure | Datamost | In January 2019 Jason Scott uploaded the source code of this game to the Internet Archive. |
| Battle Konchuuden | 1999 | 2019 | Battle RPG | Jaleco Entertainment | A zip file was found within the retail games dummy data, which included the full PlayStation 1 source code to the game. |
| Beatmania 5th Mix | 1999 | 2000 | Music video game | Konami | With the 2000 Japanese PSX game Beatmania Best Hits there was mistakenly included the source code for the 1999 game Beatmania 5th Mix. |
| The Bilestoad | 1982 | 2019 | Action-adventure | Datamost | In January 2019 Jason Scott uploaded the source code of this game to the Internet Archive. |
| Blood | 1997 | 2000/2010 | FPS | Monolith Productions | In 2000, partial source code of an alpha version was leaked. In 2010, the complete alpha source code was leaked. Using the code as reference, a reverse engineered build of the final version was created by Alexander Makarov for source ports around 2017. |
| B.O.B. / Space Funky B.O.B. | 1993 | 2008 | Side-scrolling game | Electronic Arts | On September 12, 2008 the source code of the SNES version became available as it was found on an eBay-bought hard drive. |
| Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom | 1983 | 2018 | Rail shooter | Sega | On May 17, 2018 Kevin Savetz uploaded scans of the complete source code of the Atari 8-bit conversion of Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom donated by Charlie Kulas. |
| California Watersports | 2001 | 2020 | Sports | Theyer GFX | The PlayStation source code was released in 2020 with the permission of developer Mark Theyer. |
| Captain Comic | 1988 | 2012 | Platformer | Michael Denio | In September 2012 the source code of the NES version was offered on eBay for $439. |
| Chicken Run | 2000 | 2011 | Stealth game | Blitz Games | In May 2011 the Sega Dreamcast source code became available, found by a collector on a Dreamcast Dev Kit's harddrive. |
| Chill | 1998 | 2020 | sports game | Silicon Dreams | A zip file was found within the retail game's dummy data, which included the full PlayStation 1 source code to the game. |
| ' | 2012 | 2020 | first-person shooter | Valve | A 2017 version of the game's source code was leaked on 4chan in 2020. |
| Dark Engine | 1993 | 2009/2010 | Stealth game | Looking Glass Studios | In 2009, a complete copy of the Dark Engine source code was discovered in the possession of an ex-Looking Glass Studios employee who was at the time continuing his work for Eidos Interactive. In late April 2010, a user on the Dreamcast Talk forum disassembled the contents of a Dreamcast development kit he had purchased. Later, significant updates for the Dark Engine-based games were published. |
| Dark Reign 2 | 2000 | 2011 | RTS | Pandemic Studios | Released by a former developer of Pandemic Studios under LGPL to prevent that the game become unsupported Abandonware. Legal status unclear. |
| Donkey Kong | 1981 | 2008 | Platformer | Nintendo | In August 2008 the source code of Donkey Kong in Atari 800 6502 assembly was published at the AtariAge forum by Curt Vendel, and was discussed there by the original developer, Landon Dyer. |
| ' | 1989 | 2013 | Beat em up | Technōs Japan | In 2013 the Internet Archive put the undeleted assembly sources of the DOS version for download. |
| Empire | 1977 | 197? | turn-based wargame | Walter Bright | At some point, someone broke through the security systems at Caltech, and took a copy of the source code for the FORTRAN/PDP-10 version of the game. This code was continually modified, being passed around from person to person and ported to other system e.g. to VAX/VMS OS. |
| Eve Online | 2003 | 2011 | Space strategy MMO | CCP Games | On 20 May 2011 someone released the EVE Online source code on a GitHub repository. After the source code was online four days, CCP issued a DMCA take-down request which was followed by GitHub. |
| Extreme-G 3 | 2001 | 2015 | Racer game | Acclaim Cheltenham | The source code of the PS2 game came into hands of a community member by unknown means around 2015. |
| Falcon 4.0 | 1998 | 2000 | Combat flight simulator | MicroProse | A 2000 source code leak by a former developer allowed unofficial community development, including upgrades, improved graphics, and bug fixes. In 2013 the source code of one of the community development branches was released to a GitHub repository under a questionable BSD license. |
| Fate | 2005 | 2015 | Action RPG | WildTangent | Inadvertently made available when Fate and its sequel were offered through a May 2015 Humble Bundle. The download link provided to purchasers for the DRM-Free copy lead to an apparently current dump of the source code. This was available for several days before it was corrected. |
| FIFA 97 | 1996 | 1996 | sport video game | Electronic Arts | Around 1996 Electronic Arts accidentally put the source code of FIFA 97 on a demo disc. |
| Forsaken | 1998 | 2007 | 6DOF shooter | Probe Entertainment | In 2007, nine years after the first release, the game itself and its source code were considered abandoned and became available to the public. The game's community took up the game and kept updating and porting the game via a GitHub repository under a GPL license. |
| ' | 2005 | 2011 | Third-person shooter | MAIET Entertainment | In 2011 the source code of GunZ 1.5 became available online. |
| Half-Life 2 | 2004 | 2003 | FPS | Valve | An alpha version of Half-Life 2s source code was leaked in 2003, a year before the game's release. |
| Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | 2002 | 2020 | Action-adventure | KnowWonder | Source code from a prototype version was leaked in 2020. |
| ' | 1992 | 2016 | Action game | Imagineering | Game source released of the NES game in 2016 by Frank Cifaldi after finding it on an old hard drive. |
| Killer7 | 2005 | 2016 | Action-adventure game | Grasshopper Manufacture | Sources and assets for the GameCube game were found in October 2016 on an open webserver. |
| Lineage II | 2003 | 2003 | MMORPG | NCSOFT | In 2003 a Chinese Hacker acquired the Lineage II source code, and sold it to someone who set up alternative servers. Shutdown by FBI in 2007. |
| ' | 2003 | 2019 | Third-person shooter | Sierra Entertainment | Uploaded to archive.org in 2019. |
| Microsoft Entertainment Pack | 1996 | 2004 | Casual game | Microsoft | In the copies of Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 source code which leaked back in 2004, there are 32-bit versions of Cruel, Golf, Pegged, Reversi, Snake, Taipei and TicTactics. |
| Monopoly | 2000 | 2018 | Board | Artech Studios | The source code for the Microsoft Windows version of the 2000 video game Monopoly was leaked in August 2018. |
| Mortal Kombat Trilogy | 1996 | 2018 | Fighting | Midway Games | Game source code for the Nintendo 64 version was leaked anonymously on 4chan, alongside the PC, PS1, and Arcade source of Mortal Kombat 3. |
| Monsters, Inc. | 2001 | 2019 | Platform | Kodiak Interactive | Source code and artwork for the PlayStation 2 version was uploaded to archive.org in 2019. |
| Mr Nutz 2 | 1994 | 2008 | Platformer | Ocean Software | Amiga game, source code prototype associated with Peter Thierolf. |
| Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory | 1983 | 2019 | Platform | Datamost | In January 2019 Jason Scott uploaded the source code of this game to the Internet Archive. |
| NBA Jam Extreme | 1996 | 2017 | Sports game | Sculptured Software | In February 2017 the source code was discovered on an archival CD liquidated by Acclaim Entertainment during their bankruptcy sale. It was subsequently sold on eBay for $500. |
| Various Nintendo games | 1990-2011 | 2020 | Various | Various | Throughout 2020, the source code for several games by Nintendo was leaked by anonymous users on 4chan. These include Super Mario 64, the first four generations of the Pokémon series, and the firmware for the Nintendo 64, GameCube, and 3DS. For more information, please see 2020 Nintendo data leak. |
| Pac-Man | 1982 | 2019 | Maze | Roklan Corp. | In August 2019 the source code for the Atari 8-bit version was released by Kevin Savetz. |
| ' | 1990 | 2019 | side-scrolling | Color Dreams | In November 2019 the NES source code was uploaded to the Internet Archive. |
| Pole Position | 1983 | 2009 | Racing | General Computer Corporation | In May 20, 2009, Curt Vendel released the source code of the Atari 2600 conversion of Pole Position. |
| Postal III | 2011 | 2020 | First person shooter | Running with Scissors | Leaked onto 4chan in June 2020, and contains pre-release Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 content. |
| Raid 2020 | 1989 | 2019 | Side-scrolling action game | Color Dreams | Source code was found on a floppy disk and uploaded to archive.org in 2019. |
| Re-Volt | 1999 | 200? | Racing game | Acclaim Studios London | Members of the fan-base have acquired the source code of the game around 2004, which was leaked from an anonymous developer who worked on the Xbox Live port. The game community works since then on fan patches and source ports to new platforms like Linux, MacOS and OpenPandora. |
| Rolling Thunder | 1987 | 2016 | side-scrolling action game | Tiertex Design Studios | The Amiga version became available on a community forum. |
| ' | 2001 | 2018 | Platformer | Climax Development | The game's development repository was released on GitHub in 2018, converted from an old Microsoft Visual SourceSafe repository. Curiously, it was discovered that the game contained code from the Linux kernel, and therefore violates the GNU General Public License. |
| ' | 2008 | 2014 | FPS | GSC Game World | In August 2014 's X-Ray Engine 1.5.10 source code became available on GitHub under a non-open-source license. The engine, X-ray 1.6.02, became available too. As of October 2019 the xray-16 engine community fork, "OpenXRay", achieved compiling state and support for the two games "Call of Pripyat" and "Clear Sky" with build 558. |
| Starcraft | 1998 | 2017 | Real-time strategy | Blizzard | In 2017 it was announced that a potentially 1998 stolen/lost STARCRAFT Gold Master source code CD of Starcraft resurfaced in the hand of an enthusiast. After long contemplation, he sent it back to Blizzard. There was some doubt about the authenticity of this CD, as there was no proof provided. It is unclear if, as indicated in the earlier discussion, a copy of the source code was forwarded to Jason Scott of the Internet Archive for preservation purposes. |
| Star Wars Galaxies | 2003 | 2014 | MMO | Sony Online Entertainment | In 2013, a former Sony Online Entertainment employee leaked a copy of the 2010 production source code for the Star Wars Galaxies client, server, 3rd party libraries and development tools to a group of former players involved with the "New Game Enhancements" Star Wars Galaxies emulator . The code was later leaked beyond its intended recipients and made available online. Live, free to play public servers and public development groups have since come into existence. |
| Super 3D Noah's Ark | 1994 | 2018 | FPS | Wisdom Tree | In November 2018 the source code for SNES version was bought on eBay and released to the public. |
| Swashbuckler | 1982 | 2019 | Fighting | Datamost | In January 2019 Jason Scott uploaded the source code of this game to the Internet Archive. |
| Team Fortress 2 | 2007 | 2020 | first-person shooter | Valve | A 2017 version of the game's source code was leaked on 4chan in 2020. |
| Tempest 2000 | 1994 | 2008 | tube shooter | Llamasoft | On 24 August 2008, the source code of Tempest 2000 was released by the defunct Jaguar Sector II website under a CD compilation for PC titled Jaguar Source Code Collection. |
| Tony Hawk's Underground | 2003 | 2016 | Sports game | Neversoft | The game's C++ source code was leaked in February 2016 to GitHub. |
| Turrican III | 1994 | 2008 | Run and gun | Factor 5 | Amiga game, source code prototype associated with Peter Thierolf. |
| ' | 1997 | 2017 | First-person shooter | Iguana Entertainment / Acclaim Entertainment | In February 2017 the source code of the N64 version was sold on eBay for $2551.99 on a SGI Silicon Graphics Indy development machine which came from the Acclaim Entertainment liquidation. This source code was later released August 26, 2018, then reuploaded, non-encrypted to 4chan the following day. |
| Trespasser | 1998 | 200x | Action-adventure, FPS | DreamWorks Interactive | The fan community got the original source code into hand by unknown means and created modifications and unofficial patches with it, the latest DirectX 9 port from 2016 and the development ongoing. |
| ' | 1999 | 2014 | Role-playing video game | Origin Systems | In November 2014 the Ultima Codex Community was able to acquire the Ultima 9 source code from a former developer for offline archival to prevent permanent loss. |
| Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 | 1994 | 2009 | Beat'em up | Midway Games | The source code and artwork of the PSX version were recovered from floppies in 2009. |
| Unreal Championship 2 | 2005 | 2020 | First-person shooter | Epic Games | Leaked to 4chan on July 29, 2020. |
| Up'n Down | 1984 | 2018 | Racing, maze | Sega | On May 17, 2018 Kevin Savetz uploaded scans of the complete source code of the Atari 8-bit conversion of Upn Down donated by Charlie Kulas. |
| Urban Assault | 1998 | 2016 | Real-time strategy | TerraTools | Found on eBay. |
| 1997 | 2020 | Real-time strategy | Blizzard Entertainment | Source code for the PlayStation version was uploaded to archive.org. | |
| Wing commander series | 1990 | 2011 | Space simulator | Origin Systems | The long lost source code of Wing Commander I was given to the fan-community in August 2011 by a former developer for the purpose of long-time preservation. Later most other parts of the series followed. |
| Xbox system software | 2001 | 2020 | Video game console operating system | Microsoft | In May 2020, the Xbox operating system source code was leaked. |
| Zork and other Infocom games | 1977 | 2008 | Adventure game | Infocom | In 2008 a back-up with the source code of all Infocom's video games appeared from an anonymous Infocom source and was archived by the Internet Archive's Jason Scott. On May 5, 2020, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology uploaded to GitHub the source code for a 1977 version of Zork''. |
Games with reconstructed source code
Once games, or software in general, become an obsolete product for a company, the tools and source code required to re-create the game are often lost or even actively destroyed and deleted. On the closure of Atari in Sunnyvale, California in 1996, the original source code of several milestones of video game history were thrown out as trash.When much time and manual work is invested, it is still possible to recover or restore a source code variant which replicates the program's functions accurately from the binary program. Techniques used to accomplish this are decompiling, disassembling, and reverse engineering the binary executable. This approach typically does not result in the exact original source code but rather a divergent version, as a binary program does not contain all of the information originally carried in the source code. For example, comments and function names cannot be restored if the program was compiled without additional debug information.
Using the techniques listed above within a "bottom-up" development methodology process, the re-created source-code of a game is able to replicate the behavior of the original game exactly, often being "clock-cycle accurate", and/or "pixel-per-pixel accurate". This approach is in contrast to that used by game engine recreations, which are often made using a "top-down" development methodology, and which can result in duplicating the general features provided by a game engine, but not necessarily an accurate representation of the original game.
| Title | Original release | Source code reconstructed | Genre | Original developer | Additional information |
| Albion | 1996 | 2011 | Adventure game | Blue Byte | In 2011 via static recompilation from the original x86 binary executable a port for the ARM architecture of the Pandora handheld was created by fans. The community still updates this recompiled version and released also Windows and Linux builds in 2015, source code available on GitHub under MIT. |
| Another World | 1991 | 2011 | Platform game | Delphine Software International | In 2011, Fabien Sanglard analysed Another World by reverse engineering and reconstructed, based on an earlier approach, a complete C++ source code variant of the internal virtual machine. |
| Bagman | 1982 | 2010 | Arcade game | Valadon Automation | In 2010 the French programmer Jean-François Fabre reconstructed C source code from the game to port it to modern platforms. |
| Bermuda Syndrome | 1995 | 2007 | Adventure game | Century Interactive | After the end of support for the game, Gregory Montoir reverse engineered in 2007 the game engine and wrote a substitute which allowed the porting of the game to modern platforms, like the OpenPandora handheld. |
| Boulder Dash | 1984 | 2016 | Arcade game | First Star Software | The C64 version was bit accurate reverse engineered by enthusiasts in month long work in 2016. The group reverse engineered several more games also from this period, like The Castles of Dr. Creep 3, Miner 2049er, Lode Runner, Manic Miner and Beach Head. |
| The Castles of Dr. Creep | 1984 | 2010 | Platform game | Edward R. Hobbs | Robert Crossfield worked on a faithful engine for the game since 2010. The remake/reconstructed version got released for PC on Steam by Edward R. Hobbs & Robert Crossfield in September 2016. |
| Cannon Fodder | 1993 | 2015 | top-down shooter | Sensible Software | In December 2015, Robert Crossfield released version 1.0 of the reverse engineered DOS CD Cannon Fodder version, under the name "OpenFodder" on GitHub under GPL. |
| ' | 1997 | 2016 | First-person shooter | Action Forms | Around 2016 a reverse engineered version became available on GitHub. |
| Citadel | 1985 | 2018 | Action-adventure game | Superior Software | Buildable, reverse-engineered assembler source for the BBC Microcomputer Model B version of the game was released on the Stardot forums in October 2018, by a user known as Diminished. |
| Commander Keen 5 | 2001 | 2017 | Sidecrolling shooter | Id software | In 2017 a pixel-accuracy aiming engine re-implementation, based on several disassembly/decompilation efforts, became available by David Gow. C99 source code is hosted on GitHub under GPLv2. Originally only meant for Keen 5, it now supports Keen 4, 5 and 6. |
| Diablo | 1996 | 2018 | Action RPG | Blizzard Entertainment | In 2018 a reverse engineered version was released, based on previously accidentally released debug information and builds by Diablo developers. Builds and compiles successfully for modern OSes. |
| Diablo II | 2000 | 2015 | Action RPG | Blizzard Entertainment | In 2015 an unofficial port for the ARM architecture based Pandora handheld became available by static recompilation and reverse engineering of the original x86 version. |
| Digger | 1983 | 1998 | Arcade | Windmill Software | Reverse engineered by Andrew Jenner in 1998, called Digger Remastered, released as GPL and ported for many platforms. |
| Dune II | 1992 | 2009 | Real-time strategy game | Westwood Studios | In 2009 a group started reverse engineering Dune II under the name OpenDUNE. The resulting code was released under GPLv2 and ported to other platforms like the Pandora. |
| Dungeon Keeper | 1997 | 2005 | realtime dungeon simulator | Bullfrog | Tomasz Lis works on reverse engineering a version called "KeeperFX", the resulting source code is released as GPLv3. |
| Dungeon Master | 1989 | 2001 | Dungeon crawler | FTL Games | In 2001 Dungeon Master was released by Paul R. Stevens in a portable reverse engineered version called "CSBwin". CSBwin was reverse engineered from the game's Atari assembler code to a pure C version in months of work. In 2014 Christophe Fontanel released another reverse engineering project which tries to recreate all existing versions. |
| E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial | 1982 | 2006 | Arcade | Atari | In 2006 decompiled by Dennis Debro. Following that, several unofficial fixes for the game were released by a fan site. |
| Elite | 1984 | 2003 | Space trading game | Ian Bell, David Braben | Christian Pinder created Elite: The New Kind as faithful PC version by reverse-engineering platform-neutral C code from the original BBC Micro version of Elite. This version was withdrawn from the main distribution at David Braben's request in 2003. In September 2014, on Elite's 30th birthday, Ian Bell blessed Elite: The New Kind and re-released it for free on his website. Source code of the 1.0 version is available on a GitHub repository. |
| Escape from Colditz | 1991 | 2009 | Action-adventure game | Mike Halsall, John Law / Digital Magic Software. | Around 2009 some developers reconstructed from the Amiga version a C version under GPLv3. Ported then to many systems. |
| Exile | 1988 | 2012 | Action-adventure game | Peter Irvin, Jeremy Smith | Around 2012 the assembly source code of the BBC Micro version was reconstructed and commented. Later author Peter Irvin blessed also the non-commercial redistribution of the Amiga version of the game. |
| Freeway | 1981 | 19?? | Arcade game | Activision | Decompiled and commented by Rebecca Heineman. |
| Football Manager | 1982 | 2001 | Sports game, Business simulation game | Kevin Toms | In 2001 Paul Robson developed an accurate remake of the original game by reverse engineering in C. The remake has since been ported to the GP2X and Google Android. |
| ' | 1993 | 2006 | Space trading game | Frontier Developments | Reverse engineered to C by Tom Morton until 2006. |
| ' | 1995 | 2005 | Space trading game | Frontier Developments | Frontier Developments announced in 2000 that FFE would be open-sourced under a GPL-similar license, but this never happened. In response, in October 2005 the game was reverse engineered by John Jordan and builds for modern operation systems were provided. Updated until December 1, 2009 and later continued by other programmers with builds like "FFE_D3D". |
| Half-Life | 1999 | 2013 | FPS | Valve | Around 2013 Valve released with the SDK some source code parts. The client and the Goldsrc engine parts were reverse engineered in context of the Xash3d project. Ports to other systems became available, for instance Android or the OpenPandora. |
| Inner Worlds | 1996 | 2016 | Fantasy adventure platformer | Sleepless Software | Originally shareware, in February 2000 the game was released as freeware in version 1.3. Source code reverse engineered around 2016. |
| ' | 1994 | 2017 | Point and click adventure | Pendulo Studios | Reverse engineered by Gregory Montoir, now hosted on GitHub, currently beta status. |
| Heart of the Alien | 1994 | 2004 | Platformer | Interplay Entertainment | After Heart of the Alien became unsupported and unavailable, Gil Megidish took up 2004 the effort of extracting a source code variant from the binary game by reverse engineering to make the game available again on modern platforms. The extracted source code was made open-source and is hosted freely available on SourceForge. |
| Jet Set Willy | 1984 | 2014 | Platformer | Software Projects | This classic ZX Spectrum game was disassembled by Richard Dymond back into Z80 source code, and includes some very comprehensive comments. |
| J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I | 1990 | 2009 | Adventure game | Interplay Entertainment | As the game is without official support for many years, a community developer reverse engineered the game engine and created around 2009 a substitute. The LPGLv2.1+ licensed open source project allowed the porting to modern platforms, for instance Windows, Linux and the OpenPandora handheld. |
| KKnD Extreme | 1997 | 2017 | Real-time strategy | Beam Software | Reverse engineered and made available on GitHub by Alexandr Parshin. |
| Little Big Adventure | 1994 | 2004 | Action-adventure | Adeline Software International | Reverse engineered after getting an "OK" by Frederick Raynal and placed on SourceForge as "Twin-e". |
| Manic Miner | 1983 | 2014 | Platformer | Bug-Byte | This classic ZX Spectrum game was disassembled by Richard Dymond back into Z80 source code, and includes some very comprehensive comments. |
| Mercenary, including Damocles and The Dion Crisis | 1985 | 2007 | Adventure game | Novagen Software | A computer scientist fan reverse engineered all of the game engines and created a clone of the complete game series. |
| Metroid | 1986 | ? | Run and gun/Action-adventure game | Nintendo | The NES game was disassembled by the collaborative work of several developers over the course of years. |
| Might and Magic 6/7/8 | 1998 | 2016 | RPG | New World Computing | Reverse engineered as world-of-might-and-magic on GitHub by Alexandr Parshin and other programmers. |
| Minecraft | 2009 | 2010 | Sandbox game | Mojang | The Mod Coder Pack offers scripts for de-obfuscation/decompilation of the Java-based version of Minecraft. |
| Nicky Boum | 1992 | 2007 | Platform game | Microïds | Reverse engineered by Gregory Montoir and open sourced in March 2006 with version 0.1.5. The engine reached with v0.2.0 playable status when development and distribution of the source code was stopped. The source code was made in 2017 available on GitHub for some time, before the repository was set to private. |
| Oo-Topos | 1982 | 2015 | Interactive fiction | Penguin Software | Penguin Software released several of their Comprehend Adventure engine games as freeware, also from the Transylvania series. After end of official support, Ryan Mallon reconstructed around July 2015 a source code variant of the game's engine to port these games. Ryan Mallon works also on reverse engineering The Lost Vikings engine. |
| Out Run | 1986 | 2012 | Arcade racing | Sega | Since around 2009 a game enthusiast worked on decompiling source code of "Out Run". In 2012 a truthful engine, called "Canon Ball", was released on GitHub. To run the game, the original game's assets are required. Ports to many systems followed, like OpenPandora. |
| Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue | 1996 | 2014 | Role-playing video games | Nintendo | Reverse engineered assembly of the Game Boy Color game on github.com. |
| Pokémon Crystal | 2001 | 2014 | Role-playing video games | Nintendo | Reverse engineered assembly of the Game Boy Color game on github.com. |
| Pong | 1972 | 2012 | Arcade game | Atari | The available schematics was reconstructed and adapted for modern and available electronic parts to a new PCB design in 2012. |
| RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 | 2002 | 2014 | Business simulation game | Chris Sawyer | In April 2014 a project to reverse engineer Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 into platform independent C source code, was started under the name OpenRCT2 by Ted 'IntelOrca' John. Hosted as GPLv3 licensed open-source software on GitHub, it requires the original game's graphics and sound assets. As of November 2015, while the project has not fully reached the goal of substituting 100% of the binary's functionality, the port is playable and for many platforms builds are available. |
| PowerSlave | 1996 | 2015 | FPS | Lobotomy Software | On May 24, 2015, an unofficial remake based on the PlayStation version was released by Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal for free. In May 2015 publisher Night Dive Studios acquired the game rights, Villarreal and Night Dive Studios working on a digital distribution re-release. On January 2, 2017 Kaiser released the source code of his reverse engineered engine under the GPLv3 license on GitHub. |
| PowerSlave | 1996 | 2019 | FPS | Lobotomy Software | In November 2019 a reverse engineered port of the DOS version of Powerslave was released. The source code was released under the GPLv2 license. |
| Snipes | 1983 | 2016 | early networked Multi player game maze game | SuperSet Software | In July 2016, a faithful port by reverse engineering the original game became available. Permission was granted by original authors Drew Major and Kyle Powell to make it public. The full C/C++ source code is available at GitHub. |
| Super Bomberman | 1993 | 2015 | Action, Maze | Hudson Soft | Reverse engineered assembly and build system of Super Bomberman by Lior Helphon on GitHub. Rebuilds several different versions of the game, and can restore some disabled debug features. |
| Super Mario Bros | 1985 | 2012 | Platformer | Nintendo | Commented disassembly of SMB on GitHub. A statically reverse engineered version, compiling and running with SDL was developed around 2017/2018. |
| Space Ace | 1984 | 2015 | Interactive movie | Advanced Microcomputer Systems | In July 2015 Rebecca Heineman released a reverse engineered Apple IIGS source code version of Space Ace on GitHub. |
| Space Invaders | 1978 | 2019 | Arcade | Taito | In December 2019 a C translation of Space Invaders by Jason McSweeney was released on Github. |
| Star Castle | 1980 | 2012 | Arcade | Atari | Former Atari engineer D. Scott Williamson re-created in 3 years work Star Castle faithfully for the Atari 2600. After a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, he released everything for free on his website, including source code. |
| Starcraft | 1998 | 2014 | Real-time strategy | Blizzard Entertainment | By static recompilation and reverse engineering of the original x86 binary to an intermediate C "pseudo-assembly" source code, an unofficial version for the Pandora handheld and the ARM architecture became available in 2014. |
| Stardew Valley | 2016 | 2016 | Farming simulation | Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone / Chucklefish | Decompiled for fan patches and mods. |
| ' | 1999 | 2017 | Arcade racing | LucasArts | Reverse engineering of the code since 2017. Currently only a small part of the source code is reverse engineered, it is partly emulation. The main functionaly is still coming from the original binary where newly created replacement parts are spliced-in in runtime. |
| ' | 1997 | 2013 | FPS | LucasArts | Since 2013, a recreation of the engine has been in development on GitHub. |
| Strike Commander | 1993 | 2013 | Flight simulator | Origin Systems | In 2013 a SC reverse engineering project by Fabien Sanglard with a reconstructed source code variant became available on GitHub as the original source code was most probably lost in the take over of Origin by EA. |
| Super 3D Noah's Ark | 1994 | 2015 | FPS | Wisdom Tree | In October 2015 a community reconstructed, under usage of already released id software engine code, source code variant became available on Bitbucket. |
| Super Mario 64 | 1996 | 2019 | Platform game | Nintendo | In 2016, enthusiasts began to rewrite every function by hand, referencing a MIPS disassembly, then compile the code with the game's original compiler in qemu-irix, resulting in an identical copy of the game. This took advantage of the fact that Nintendo didn't turn on any compiler optimizations for the first Japanese and US releases. Their work was leaked on 4chan in June 2019 but it was finally released in late August of the same year. |
| Syndicate Wars | 1996 | 2010 | Real-time tactics | Bullfrog Productions | In January 2010 a reverse engineering project of the MS-DOS-based Syndicate Wars was finished by two developers and builds for Windows, Mac and Linux were released. It's complete beside networking and joystick code. |
| Tennis for two | 1958 | 2008 | Arcade | William Higinbotham | In 2008 Tennis for Two, a video game from 1958 and one of the earliest video games, was recreated using partly modern parts. |
| The Great Escape | 1986 | 2016 | Arcade adventure | Denton Designs | David Thomas started in 2012 a reverse engineering project to create portable C source code from the ZX Spectrum version's binary, which reached in January 2016 compiling state. |
| The Last Ninja | 1987 | 2009 | Action-adventure game | System 3 | Robert Crossfield reverse engineered a faithful engine from the Amiga version of the game since 2009. First three levels complete. |
| ' | 2000 | 2017 | Action-adventure game | Core Design | Around February 2017 PSX SDK tools and debug symbols leaked to a forum which ignited a reverse engineering project on GitHub. Status, compiling. |
| Touhou Project | 1996 | 2014 | Shoot 'em up | Team Shanghai Alice | "The Touhou PC-98 Restoration Project" was started around 2014 on GitHub on base of found source code of libraries. In progress. |
| Touhou Project | 2002 | 2014 | Shoot 'em up | Team Shanghai Alice | "PyTouhou" is a free and open source reimplementation of Touhou 6 engine in Python and now Rust by three french programmers: Emmanuel Gil Peyrot, Thibaut Girka and Gauvain Roussel-Tarbouriech. While the Python branch is mostly complete, albeit for a few bugs, the Rust branch is still a work-in-progress. Other Touhou Project engine reimplementations after the 5th installment are a work-in-progress.. |
| Transport Tycoon Deluxe | 1994 | 2004 | Business simulation game | Chris Sawyer/Microprose | In 2003, Ludvig Strigeus started to reverse engineer Transport Tycoon Deluxe and convert the game to C. In 2004, this re-engineered Transport Tycoon Deluxe was released and christened OpenTTD and is still under active development by the community. |
| ' | 1983 | 2002 | RPG | Richard Garriott | Disassembled and ported to GBC in 2001 by Sven Carlberg. Richard Garriott was aware and pleased by this work. |
| Undertale | 2015 | 2019 | Role-playing video game | Toby Fox | The game's decompiled source code was uploaded to GitHub in February 2019, although it has since been taken down. |
| Zorgons Revenge | 1983 | 2014 | Shooter | John Sinclair | Jean-François Fabre created binary translation libraries for Oric BASIC and assembly code to portable C and used it for nine games. Source code re-created and released for: House of Death, L'Aigle d'Or, Le Manoir du Dr Genius, Le Retour du Dr Genius, Rendez-vous de la Terreur, Xenon 1, Strip 21, Zebbie, Zorgons' Revenge. Build available for the OpenPandora. |
| ZZT | 1991 | 2020 | Action-adventure, puzzle | Tim Sweeney / Potomac Computer Systems | ZZT's source code got reconstructed by Adrian Siekierka in 2020. Compilation with Turbo Pascal 5.5 produces an identical.EXE file than the original release. Done with permission from Tim Sweeney. The source code is released under a permissive license on GitHub. |