EA released the source in 2025

Zero Hour Reforged

Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour, rebuilt from the source EA opened. The computer builds a base now, around sixty bugs from 2003 are gone and the frame rate has no cap.

Download launcher v1.1.4 · 97 MB · Windows x64 Read the patch notes

You need your own Zero Hour from Steam or the EA app. No game data ships here.

~580 engine source files ported

~60 bugs from 2003 fixed

39 test binaries on every build

3,853 lines of Turkish

Intel 01

Then and now

The source EA released against this build. The changelog has the measurement behind every line.

EA source Reforged

Worst logic turn

12.2× faster

2,976 ms

243 ms

A 23-cell route

10.2× faster

256 ms

25 ms

Route searching over a match

7.4× faster

11.8 s

1.6 s

A screen of fire and smoke

1.7× faster

11.6 ms

6.7 ms

Worst frame of a fight's first volley

3.7× faster

141 ms

38 ms

The command bar laid out again

7× faster

14 ms

2 ms

Text lettered over one battle

418.6× fewer

68,227 pieces

163 pieces

Twenty tanks meeting twenty head-on

3.1× sooner

72 s

23 s

A Crusader's trip when two armies of 420 cross

1.8× sooner

167 s

91 s

Hard's first superweapon

2.6× sooner

12.5 min

4.9 min

Picture and speed

Frame rate the picture waits on the game's clock uncapped, and the rules keep their own

Base game textures Zero Hour's downscaled copies 481 originals at four times the resolution

Ground 64 pixels a square in 16-bit colour 128 pixels in full colour, lit by the map's sun

Infantry shadows a flat blob cast from the pose

Widescreen one 4:3 command bar stretched across three pieces at the size they were drawn

A dense wood about 730 trees drawn, the rest blink out every tree

The computer opponent

Skirmish opponent urgent orders and one power plant builds, scouts, expands and retreats

What it sees your whole map, through the fog what it has scouted, and stealth works on it

What it trains a coin flip between teams whatever beats what it sees you field

A lost fight fought to the last man Hard pulls the team out

A full bank Hard sat on 117,000 spent on more attack groups

Orders and movement

Mouse left selected and ordered, right scrolled left selects, right orders, the middle button moves the camera

Shift queue moves only, dropped on the next click any order, kept by the group

One click on a big army 329 of 841 units never moved all 840 go

The long bridge on Golden Oasis one tank in ten stuck under the deck twenty of twenty cross

Focus fire the whole group empties into a dying target the first to aim keeps it, the rest pick again

Moving diagonally up to 40% over the unit's own speed the unit's own speed

Everything else

Language English English or Türkçe

Replays only the last match kept every match, with a timeline to jump along

Countdowns a second too long the real time

Memory 4 GB, then a stall and a crash 64-bit, no ceiling

A crash silence a report with file and line, sent by the launcher

Intel 02

What a match feels like now

Pick a cameo, or press its key the way the command bar takes it.

Cam 01

A Hard AI's American base on Twilight Flame at 7:51

An opponent that plays fair and plays well

One wrong value kept the skirmish AI from building a base since 2003. It builds one now, scouts for your start and on Hard pulls a losing team out of the fight. No difficulty cheats.

15-0 Hard against Easy, seats swapped both ways

Cam 03

Q W E R A S D F Z X C V

The grid hotkeys under Modern controls

Controls you pick

In Modern, left selects, right orders and grid hotkeys run the command bar. Legacy is the game as it shipped in 2003. Pick one under Options > Controls.

5 / 20 queued by Shift and by Ctrl on a build button

Intel 03

Recon

Twenty-three frames from this build, sorted by what changed. Open one to look closer.

Orders

Install

The launcher downloads the build, checks every file against a signed list and keeps the game up to date.

Objectives

01Have Zero Hour

Installed from Steam or the EA app. A Steam copy still starts through Steam.
02Run the launcher

The installer is not code signed, so Windows SmartScreen asks once before it starts.
03Install, then Play

The launcher finds your Zero Hour folder and lists every file it is about to write before it writes any. Each file it replaces is backed up first.

Not there yet

LAN and online play between separate machines have not been tested. Two copies on one machine play each other fine.
A Direct3D 11 frame still costs more than the old renderer's, 13.6 ms against 8.6 ms on a screen full of Inferno Cannon fire. -d3d9 is the way back.

Latest launcher

Version: v1.1.4
Released: September 22, 2026
Size: 97 MB
SHA-256: 4df5e3850091a39a083f5fcd995dcc8d207e3b8053f71cdd146f2c1f891398a3

Download launcher v1.1.4 · 97 MB · Windows x64

Intel 04

Patch notes

Read straight off the channel the launcher updates from.

v2.1.0 September 22, 2026

Fetching the write-up

GLA move orders now go through the Tunnel Network when that way is clearly shorter than walking
The GLA computer now has its Workers build Tunnel Networks and retreats through them
One slow graphics card no longer slows the whole network game down
Click-to-move delay online decreased from about 310ms to 215ms at a 200ms ping
Orders on a building under fog of war now go through
Campaign and skirmish now have cheats in the console
The window now fits the screen with Windows display scaling turned up

Full write-up Every release

Intel 05

How it was tested

There is no CI and no debugger on the machine this is built on. The game tests itself instead.

field-test.log REC

ctest39 test binaries run on every build [ PASS ]

headless skirmisha 23-minute match plays out in 38 seconds, the same way on every run [ PASS ]

ai-batch20 headless matches on the same seeds, win rate and match length before and after [ PASS ]

tree-checkthe same frame from two builds, and the pixels between them counted [ PASS ]

net-checktwo copies over one real connection [ PASS ]

regressionevery fix proved by putting the bug back and watching its test fail [ PASS ]

Reinforcements

Help out

Two PCs and an evening are the most useful thing anyone can give this right now.

Zero Hour Reforged