OpenRA

tosh 641 points 126 comments June 27, 2026
www.openra.net · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (19 comments)

JumpCrisscross

Has anyone built better AIs for this?

liendolucas

If you play the original and then OpenRA you will be amazed how well OpenRA is balanced. As an example, while in the original game using allied artillery against soviet tesla coils was a dead sentence in OpenRA is great to be able to fire well beyond its range forcing you to come out of the base to defend it. They also added a ton of features which make the game truly enjoyable and fun to play. Well done OpenRA team!

ionwake

based, been playing this for months with my friend, over anything else. EDIT> My fav setup is to join a free empty server , set up 2 teams, 2 AI and 1 human vs 2 AI and 1 human. And then play with my friend. Great fun. The AI adds a bit of a randomness to the games. Easy smooth quick interface. Just perfect for a quick free RTS game with a friend.

dijit

I just wish I still had the original games to use as content packs. Every time I've tried to install this previously, this was my wall :(

Tepix

Has anyone turned it into a browser game?

rizsyed1

This is such a great game. Incredibly well-balanced and thought through.

geenat

I wish they would release Tiberium Sun

Havoc

Need to try this at some point. The other open RTS - beyondallreason - is really good too.

guilhas

Very entertaining campaign

patentlyze

OpenRA is awesome. Whoever runs it, you're awesome! The player base is only slightly lower than when I used to play RA2 on dial-up like 20 years ago. I've boycotted EA ever since they ruined the franchise.

malux85

When I was a teenager, I lived on a farm and our neighbour's were another adult couple. He was late 40s and she was late 50s, her name was Jane. Jane had an infectious laugh. She was always baking. She died her hair bright red. She drank too much wine. She didnt know much about the details of technology but she was intrigued by it, she read books and she volunteered to help as a teachers aide at the local primary school. And Jane had a secret, she was one of the best Red Alert 2 players I had ever seen. We'd have matches over dialup and she would totally wreck me in such a short amount of time. I couldn't figure out a strategy to beat her, it was different every time. I still have very vivid memories of Jane sitting in the corner of her farm house, big thick glasses on, glass of red wine, leading the comrades into war, and laughing as she bombed the allies into submission. If you met Jane on the street you would never ever guess that under that farmer's wife persona, lurked a dangerous and cunning war strategist. Totally unexpected and utterly fabulous. Love you Jane

dice

We used to play RA on my friend's home network, which was thin net running IPX. The house rule was that if we'd collectively built enough units that the game started slowing down you had to attack. It was good times.

farbklang

Shoutout to one of my favorite OpenRA podcaster - watching the game is a lot less stressful than actually playing it: https://www.youtube.com/@CovertFlobert

t0mas88

OpenRA is great, it feels like a better version of Red Alert 2. The one thing I'm missing is C&C Generals and Zero Hour. Those were also really fun to play over LAN.

ceejayoz

I have such fond memories of this game. Editing the .ini files was a delight - I distinctly remember giving Tanya (with her incredibly rapid-fire guns) cruiser shells and having basically the entire map blow up instantaneously.

zuzululu

wish there was OpenRA2 thats the one i been looking forward to

spyware_suburbs

So someone loves red alert like me awesome.

rvba

It is funny how StarCraft Brood War runs circles around C&C games - people still play it online, there are still 20k dollar tournaments in Korea... the game is just more fun to play and to watch. It received an official remaster too that was only a graphics update Meamwhile people make threads about RA what was a bad game even when it came out - "strategy" was to made few overpowered towers, then mass tanks and flood the computer with them. Mutliplayer was tanks + dogs, so the first shot of the enemy tank was wasted on your dog.

gehsty

Ah man I remember playing Red Alert against my friends online where you had to put the other persons phone number in and (I guess??) you made some kind of direct network connection. No idea if it was billed as internet or what!

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