OpenBFME v0.4.0 Alpha 3

OpenBFME v0.4.0-alpha.3 is an alpha build for testers.
Install or update it with the OpenBFME Launcher. It uses your installed The Rise of the Witch-king 2.01 and The Battle for Middle-earth II 1.06, or downloads them for you.

What's new

• A new Options entry, Uber performance mode, makes the next game and LAN lobby use every CPU core. It is not compatible with the original game, says so in its help line, and Uber players only play and replay with Uber players.
• Online games (a test feature): the launcher can register game invite links, and the game can join a game from a lobby server that someone hosts. See "Online play" in the player guide.
• A left click on empty ground deselects; a right click on a hero's recruit button cancels it and refunds the cost; an upgrade in progress shows as in progress on its bubble; the radar's view box follows the tilted camera.
• The Linux build needs an older system library (GLIBC 2.18) and uses its own deterministic maths library, so replays and online games match between Windows and Linux.
• A building that is still being built recruits nothing and shows its construction stages; damaged buildings show their damage states; heroes strike hordes in melee again; unit stances (hold ground, battle, aggressive) use the original game's guard behaviour.
• Skirmish games and campaign missions can be saved and loaded from the Save and Load screens; a save replays the game up to the moment you saved it.
• Online games: a player whose game closed can rejoin the running game, the host can pause, and spectators can watch a running game with a delay and step through the players' views.
• Online: the server browser is built on the original online screens (Open Play list with sortable columns, Join Game), and a game you left or lost shows a REJOIN offer and a WATCH row.
• Units find their way across long distances faster (the original hierarchical path search), so big armies cross large maps with less stutter.

What's fixed

• Selecting a large army no longer slows the game down: the selection markers are drawn by the terrain and refreshed once per frame, and the menu layer reuses its draw items, so holding 150 selected hordes stays within 10% of the frame time of nothing selected.
• Every game starts from freshly loaded game data, so a game after Helm's Deep or Minas Tirith no longer starts with the wrong starting units.
• Flying units (the fell beasts, Drogoth and the other flyers) fly, swoop and fight instead of standing still.

Known issues

• Only the English versions of the two games are supported; a game in another language is refused on the first start.
• Campaign: missions play with their movies and narration, but there is no campaign menu between missions and no saving of your progress the original way; the next mission loads directly.
• War of the Ring is not available yet. Skirmish, the campaign and LAN games are.
• Create-a-Hero: heroes can be built, coloured and saved, but how the house colour blends into the model is an educated guess, and the colour is not reapplied to lower-detail textures the way the original may do.
• Team colours on units and buildings are an educated guess at how the original blends them, and may look different.
• The computer opponent builds a base, trains armies and heroes, uses its spell book and powers, attacks and finishes games, but does not yet defend or expand the way the original does, and it skips some powers.
• Enemy buildings destroyed out of your sight disappear at once instead of staying in the fog until you look again.
• Some sounds are missing: units being damaged, scripted music and parts of the big-battle ambience.
• Movies have no subtitles.
• Menus are laid out for 1024x768 and scaled: at other window sizes text and click targets can be slightly off.
• Menus cannot be used with the keyboard or a gamepad, only with the mouse.
• Skirmish's profile page opens, but its statistics are not filled in yet and show placeholder labels.
• Some lists and boxes of a menu show through pop-ups placed over them.
• Radar: attacks raise pings, but scripted pings, the Ring and beacon markers, and the "under attack" voice lines are missing.
• Every game is recorded as a replay and can be watched from Load Replay, but replays cannot be saved under a name, there are no replay controls, and the score screen's graphs are simplified.
• LAN: the disconnect screen has no chat.
• Hero bar: pointing at a hero's portrait shows no help box, the portrait does not flash when the hero is attacked, and a Create-a-Hero hero does not show its own picture.
• Help boxes: hero ability, spell, repair and revive buttons do not show their cost yet, and the spell book has no help box.
• Build bubbles around a building do not flash and do not show how many units are queued.
• Selection rings always use the highest-detail look, whatever the detail setting.
• Units and buildings cast no shadows yet, so the building preview has none either.
• Graphics detail: the detail level sets the particle limit, texture quality and health bars, but shadows are not drawn yet and the model, animation, terrain, water and shader detail settings are greyed out.
• Turning a hero's autocast on or off does not play the hero's voice line.

Built from commit 66cfb03 (2026-10-13).

OpenBFME v0.4.0 Alpha 2

OpenBFME v0.4.0-alpha.2 is an alpha build for testers.
Install or update it with the OpenBFME Launcher. It uses your installed The Rise of the Witch-king 2.01 and The Battle for Middle-earth II 1.06, or downloads them for you.

What's new

• Spell book powers work for every faction: the spells make their objects and effects, and Flood sweeps and damages along its path.
• Isengard, Mordor and every other faction's command buttons follow the original: upgrade buttons show available, researching, bought or too expensive as the game does, castle upgrades such as the House of Healing work, and unit abilities (Bombard, mine deployment, Charge, hold fire) can be used.
• Fortress upgrades such as Mordor's Lava Moat now do something, and the computer opponent's fortress improvements take effect.
• Menu text uses the original's font metrics, the lobby remembers your last rules, and Options > OPENBFME has a Widescreen view setting (Original or Wider).
• Goblins and Angmar are playable through the command bar: the Goblin warriors' Poisoned Blades, fortress improvements such as Fire Arrows, Web Cocoon, Ice Walls and the Sanctum, the Fire Drake from the dragon nest, and capturing inns, outposts, signal fires and shipwrights with a right click all work.
• Fortress moats and the free wall catapults appear as in the original (Angmar's spike moat, the Mordor Lava Moat, the expansions' wall catapults).
• The Linux download now runs on Ubuntu 20.04 and Debian 10 (older glibc).

What's fixed

• The help box over a command button shows its text on Windows again.
• A rare crash when sounds stopped at the end of a game is fixed.
• Mordor's Siege Works catapult no longer drives off and gets put back at the door, and the computer opponent no longer stalls when its hero list names Frodo.

Known issues

• Only the English versions of the two games are supported; a game in another language is refused on the first start.
• Campaign: missions play with their movies and narration, but there is no campaign menu between missions and no saving of your progress the original way; the next mission loads directly.
• Save / Load and War of the Ring are not available yet. Skirmish, the campaign and LAN games are.
• Create-a-Hero: heroes can be built, coloured and saved, but how the house colour blends into the model is an educated guess, and the colour is not reapplied to lower-detail textures the way the original may do.
• Team colours on units and buildings are an educated guess at how the original blends them, and may look different.
• The computer opponent builds a base, trains armies and heroes, uses its spell book and powers, attacks and finishes games, but does not yet defend or expand the way the original does, and it skips some powers.
• Enemy buildings destroyed out of your sight disappear at once instead of staying in the fog until you look again.
• Some sounds are missing: units being damaged, scripted music and parts of the big-battle ambience.
• Movies have no subtitles.
• Menus are laid out for 1024x768 and scaled: at other window sizes text and click targets can be slightly off.
• Menus cannot be used with the keyboard or a gamepad, only with the mouse.
• Skirmish's profile page opens, but its statistics are not filled in yet and show placeholder labels.
• Some lists and boxes of a menu show through pop-ups placed over them.
• Radar: attacks raise pings, but scripted pings, the Ring and beacon markers, and the "under attack" voice lines are missing.
• Every game is recorded as a replay and can be watched from Load Replay, but replays cannot be saved under a name, there are no replay controls, and the score screen's graphs are simplified.
• LAN: the disconnect screen has no chat.
• Hero bar: pointing at a hero's portrait shows no help box, the portrait does not flash when the hero is attacked, and a Create-a-Hero hero does not show its own picture.
• Help boxes: hero ability, spell, repair and revive buttons do not show their cost yet, and the spell book has no help box.
• Build bubbles around a building do not flash and do not show how many units are queued.
• Selection rings always use the highest-detail look, whatever the detail setting.
• Units and buildings cast no shadows yet, so the building preview has none either.
• Graphics detail: the detail level sets the particle limit, texture quality and health bars, but shadows are not drawn yet and the model, animation, terrain, water and shader detail settings are greyed out.
• Turning a hero's autocast on or off does not play the hero's voice line.

Built from commit cb7543e (2026-10-12).

OpenBFME v0.4.0 Alpha 1

OpenBFME v0.4.0-alpha.1 is an alpha build for testers.
Install or update it with the OpenBFME Launcher. It uses your installed The Rise of the Witch-king 2.01 and The Battle for Middle-earth II 1.06, or downloads them for you.

What's new

• Sandbox mode: put every player on one team, or play alone, and nobody wins, so you can build and experiment as long as you like.
• The computer opponent builds heroes, uses its spell book, and its heroes and units use their powers in battle.
• The first visit to Skirmish asks for your profile name, as the original does, and remembers it.
• Loading screens show every player's name, team, army and rank icon, and a campaign mission loads behind its own picture.
• The building preview looks like the original: your colour, see-through, animated, red with a red base where it can't go, and harbours snap to the shore.
• Hold the right button and drag to scroll the map while placing a building; a quick right click still cancels the placement.

What's fixed

• Clicking a menu button that sits over a build bubble now presses the button instead of the bubble.
• You're defeated when your last building falls, as in the original: builders and armies left in the field no longer keep a player in the game.
• Menus no longer overlap: one screen at a time, pop-ups cover the menu under them, and the pause menu covers the build bubbles.

Known issues

• Linux: the game needs GLIBC 2.38 or newer (for example Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 39); older distributions such as Ubuntu or Pop!_OS 22.04 fail to start. A fix is in progress.
• Only the English versions of the two games are supported; a game in another language is refused on the first start.
• Campaign: missions play with their movies and narration, but there is no campaign menu between missions and no saving of your progress the original way; the next mission loads directly.
• Save / Load and War of the Ring are not available yet. Skirmish, the campaign and LAN games are.
• Create-a-Hero: heroes can be built, coloured and saved, but how the house colour blends into the model is an educated guess, and the colour is not reapplied to lower-detail textures the way the original may do.
• Team colours on units and buildings are an educated guess at how the original blends them, and may look different.
• The computer opponent builds a base, trains armies and heroes, uses its spell book and powers, attacks and finishes games, but does not yet defend or expand the way the original does, and it skips some powers.
• Enemy buildings destroyed out of your sight disappear at once instead of staying in the fog until you look again.
• Some sounds are missing: units being damaged, scripted music and parts of the big-battle ambience.
• Movies have no subtitles.
• Menus are laid out for 1024x768 and scaled: at other window sizes text and click targets can be slightly off. Widescreen camera framing may differ from the original.
• Menus cannot be used with the keyboard or a gamepad, only with the mouse.
• Skirmish's profile page opens, but its statistics are not filled in yet and show placeholder labels.
• Some lists and boxes of a menu show through pop-ups placed over them.
• Radar: attacks raise pings, but scripted pings, the Ring and beacon markers, and the "under attack" voice lines are missing.
• Every game is recorded as a replay and can be watched from Load Replay, but replays cannot be saved under a name, there are no replay controls, and the score screen's graphs are simplified.
• LAN: the disconnect screen has no chat.
• Hero bar: pointing at a hero's portrait shows no help box, the portrait does not flash when the hero is attacked, and a Create-a-Hero hero does not show its own picture.
• Help boxes: hero ability, spell, repair and revive buttons do not show their cost yet, and the spell book has no help box.
• Build bubbles around a building do not flash and do not show how many units are queued.
• Selection rings always use the highest-detail look, whatever the detail setting.
• Units and buildings cast no shadows yet, so the building preview has none either.
• Graphics detail: the detail level sets the particle limit, texture quality and health bars, but shadows are not drawn yet and the model, animation, terrain, water and shader detail settings are greyed out.
• The skirmish lobby does not remember your last rules: every lobby starts from the default rules.
• Turning a hero's autocast on or off does not play the hero's voice line.

Built from commit 64e50b7 (2026-10-12).

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.6

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.6 is an alpha build for testers, numbered as a preview so that launchers of v0.3.0-preview.4 and older can update themselves: after it, they offer the alpha builds.
Install or update it with the OpenBFME Launcher. It uses your installed The Rise of the Witch-king 2.01 and The Battle for Middle-earth II 1.06, or downloads them for you.

What's new

• A new launcher look: a menu on the left with Play, News, Multiplayer, Mods, Game files and Settings, the release notes on parchment, and updates that download in the background while you keep playing.
• RotWK's graphics detail settings take effect: the detail level and Custom Settings set the particle limit, texture quality and health bars, and Brightness and Scroll Speed work.
• OpenBFME's own settings are now a page inside the Options screen (the OPENBFME button), drawn sharp at any window size.
• Zoom out 2.5 times farther than the original by default; Max zoom-out on the OPENBFME Camera tab goes from the original limit to 3x.
• Health bars for every unit you can see: the Interface tab's "Always (all players)" shows every unit's and building's bar in sight, yours and the enemy's.
• Right-click a hero's ability button to autocast it: the button glows and the hero uses the ability by themselves.
• The skirmish lobby's Rules tab: starting resources, the command point limit, custom heroes and ring heroes, as in the original.
• Legendary Heroes, a new OpenBFME rule on the Rules tab (off by default): heroes get 2, 3 or 4 times their health and hit harder.
• The test builds are now called alpha builds: the launcher shows the channel as Alpha and the menus read "unofficial alpha build".

Known issues

• Only the English versions of the two games are supported; a game in another language is refused on the first start.
• Campaign: missions play with their movies and narration, but there is no campaign menu between missions and no saving of your progress the original way; the next mission loads directly. Loading screens do not show the mission picture.
• Save / Load and War of the Ring are not available yet. Skirmish, the campaign and LAN games are.
• Create-a-Hero: heroes can be built, coloured and saved, but how the house colour blends into the model is an educated guess, and the colour is not reapplied to lower-detail textures the way the original may do.
• Team colours on units and buildings are an educated guess at how the original blends them, and may look different.
• The computer opponent builds a base, trains armies, attacks and finishes games, but does not yet defend, expand or use heroes the way the original does.
• Enemy buildings destroyed out of your sight disappear at once instead of staying in the fog until you look again.
• Some sounds are missing: units being damaged, scripted music and parts of the big-battle ambience.
• Movies have no subtitles.
• Menus are laid out for 1024x768 and scaled: at other window sizes text and click targets can be slightly off. Widescreen camera framing may differ from the original.
• Menus cannot be used with the keyboard or a gamepad, only with the mouse.
• Some lists and boxes of a menu show through pop-ups placed over them.
• Radar: attacks raise pings, but scripted pings, the Ring and beacon markers, and the "under attack" voice lines are missing.
• Every game is recorded as a replay and can be watched from Load Replay, but replays cannot be saved under a name, there are no replay controls, and the score screen's graphs are simplified.
• LAN: the disconnect screen has no chat.
• Hero bar: pointing at a hero's portrait shows no help box, the portrait does not flash when the hero is attacked, and a Create-a-Hero hero does not show its own picture.
• Help boxes: hero ability, spell, repair and revive buttons do not show their cost yet, and the spell book has no help box.
• Build bubbles around a building do not flash and do not show how many units are queued.
• Selection rings always use the highest-detail look, whatever the detail setting.
• Graphics detail: the detail level sets the particle limit, texture quality and health bars, but shadows are not drawn yet and the model, animation, terrain, water and shader detail settings are greyed out.
• The skirmish lobby does not remember your last rules: every lobby starts from the default rules.
• Turning a hero's autocast on or off does not play the hero's voice line.

Built from commit 1be6299 (2026-10-11).

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.4

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.4 is a preview build for testers.
Install or update it with the OpenBFME Launcher. You need your own installs of The Rise of the Witch-king 2.01 and The Battle for Middle-earth II 1.06: the game loads its files from them.

What's new

• Display options: fullscreen, borderless window or windowed, the resolution, vertical sync, a frame rate limit, a frame rate counter (F11; Alt+Enter switches window / full screen) and a render scale with AMD FSR 1 or FSR 2 upscaling.
• The hero bar at the bottom of the screen shows your heroes' portraits and a builder button; click a portrait to select the hero, click again to look at them.
• Selection rings under your selected units and heroes, with one outline around a battalion.
• Build bubbles: a selected building shows its buttons as round bubbles around it.
• The builder's side panel has the original's carved frame.
• Help boxes: hold the pointer over a button to see its name, key, cost and description.
• The credits' titles are bold, as in the original.

What's fixed

• The Options screen's text is in RotWK's colours instead of green.
• A crash on the sound thread when the game was busy.

Known issues

• Only the English versions of the two games are supported; a game in another language is refused on the first start.
• Campaign: missions play with their movies and narration, but there is no campaign menu between missions and no saving of your progress the original way; the next mission loads directly. Loading screens do not show the mission picture.
• Save / Load and War of the Ring are not available yet. Skirmish, the campaign and LAN games are.
• Create-a-Hero: heroes can be built, coloured and saved, but how the house colour blends into the model is an educated guess, and the colour is not reapplied to lower-detail textures the way the original may do.
• Team colours on units and buildings are an educated guess at how the original blends them, and may look different.
• The computer opponent builds a base, trains armies, attacks and finishes games, but does not yet defend, expand or use heroes the way the original does.
• Enemy buildings destroyed out of your sight disappear at once instead of staying in the fog until you look again.
• Some sounds are missing: units being damaged, scripted music and parts of the big-battle ambience.
• Movies have no subtitles.
• Menus are laid out for 1024x768 and scaled: at other window sizes text and click targets can be slightly off. Widescreen camera framing may differ from the original.
• Menus cannot be used with the keyboard or a gamepad, only with the mouse.
• Some lists and boxes of a menu show through pop-ups placed over them.
• Radar: attacks raise pings, but scripted pings, the Ring and beacon markers, and the "under attack" voice lines are missing.
• Every game is recorded as a replay and can be watched from Load Replay, but replays cannot be saved under a name, there are no replay controls, and the score screen's graphs are simplified.
• LAN: the disconnect screen has no chat.
• Hero bar: pointing at a hero's portrait shows no help box, the portrait does not flash when the hero is attacked, and a Create-a-Hero hero does not show its own picture.
• Help boxes: hero ability, spell, repair and revive buttons do not show their cost yet, and the spell book has no help box.
• Build bubbles around a building do not flash and do not show how many units are queued.
• Selection rings always use the highest-detail look, whatever the detail setting.

Built from commit e8c3e18 (2026-10-11).

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.3

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.3 is a preview build for testers.
Install or update it with the OpenBFME Launcher. You need your own installs of The Rise of the Witch-king 2.01 and The Battle for Middle-earth II 1.06: the game loads its files from them.

What's new

• Building placement previews: the building you are placing shows under the pointer, red where you can't build, for every faction, fortresses included.
• The left-drag selection box is drawn as in the original and selects your units inside it.
• Missing intro movies are skipped quietly, as in the original.
• Tribute: send resources to your allies from the flag above the radar.
• Move orders show their marker on the ground.
• Upgrades you can't afford say "not enough money" and are not bought.
• The credits screen rolls the original credits.
• Custom Settings opens the advanced options.
• The game window's title reads "OpenBFME".
• A redesigned launcher that starts on the right channel (a preview launcher installs the newest preview) and shows release notes as plain text.

What's fixed

• The menu music stops when a campaign starts.
• Archers spread their fire across the enemy battalion instead of all aiming at the nearest soldier.

Known issues

• Only the English versions of the two games are supported; a game in another language is refused on the first start.
• Campaign: missions play with their movies and narration, but there is no campaign menu between missions and no saving of your progress the original way; the next mission loads directly. Loading screens do not show the mission picture.
• Save / Load and War of the Ring are not available yet. Skirmish, the campaign and LAN games are.
• Create-a-Hero: heroes can be built, coloured and saved, but how the house colour blends into the model is an educated guess, and the colour is not reapplied to lower-detail textures the way the original may do.
• Team colours on units and buildings are an educated guess at how the original blends them, and may look different.
• The computer opponent builds a base, trains armies, attacks and finishes games, but does not yet defend, expand or use heroes the way the original does.
• Enemy buildings destroyed out of your sight disappear at once instead of staying in the fog until you look again.
• Some sounds are missing: units being damaged, scripted music and parts of the big-battle ambience.
• Movies have no subtitles.
• Menus are laid out for 1024x768 and scaled: at other window sizes text and click targets can be slightly off. Widescreen camera framing may differ from the original.
• Menus cannot be used with the keyboard or a gamepad, only with the mouse.
• Some lists and boxes of a menu show through pop-ups placed over them.
• Radar: attacks raise pings, but scripted pings, the Ring and beacon markers, and the "under attack" voice lines are missing.
• Every game is recorded as a replay and can be watched from Load Replay, but replays cannot be saved under a name, there are no replay controls, and the score screen's graphs are simplified.
• LAN: the disconnect screen has no chat.

Built from commit 272a68f (2026-10-10).

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.2

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.2 is a preview build for testers.
Install or update it with the OpenBFME Launcher. You need your own installs of The Rise of the Witch-king 2.01 and The Battle for Middle-earth II 1.06: the game loads its files from them.

What's new

• Force-attack on the ground: hold Ctrl and click a spot, and the selected units attack it until you give another order.
• The Options Advanced page shows its settings: the nine detail settings with their values, and your custom choice is saved.
• Combat details from the original: disabled and paralysed units, temporary weapons, turrets that aim before they fire, and the original's splash rules.
• Multiplayer games stay in sync when players leave.

What's fixed

Known issues

• Only the English versions of the two games are supported; a game in another language is refused on the first start.
• Campaign: missions play with their movies and narration, but there is no campaign menu between missions and no saving of your progress the original way; the next mission loads directly. Loading screens do not show the mission picture.
• Save / Load and War of the Ring are not available yet. Skirmish, the campaign and LAN games are.
• Create-a-Hero: heroes can be built, coloured and saved, but how the house colour blends into the model is an educated guess, and the colour is not reapplied to lower-detail textures the way the original may do.
• Tribute (sending resources to an ally) does not work yet.
• Team colours on units and buildings are an educated guess at how the original blends them, and may look different.
• The computer opponent builds a base, trains armies, attacks and finishes games, but does not yet defend, expand or use heroes the way the original does.
• Enemy buildings destroyed out of your sight disappear at once instead of staying in the fog until you look again.
• Some sounds are missing: units being damaged, scripted music and parts of the big-battle ambience.
• Movies have no subtitles.
• Menus are laid out for 1024x768 and scaled: at other window sizes text and click targets can be slightly off. Widescreen camera framing may differ from the original.
• Menus cannot be used with the keyboard or a gamepad, only with the mouse.
• Some lists and boxes of a menu show through pop-ups placed over them.
• Radar: attacks raise pings, but scripted pings, the Ring and beacon markers, and the "under attack" voice lines are missing.
• Every game is recorded as a replay and can be watched from Load Replay, but replays cannot be saved under a name, there are no replay controls, and the score screen's graphs are simplified.
• LAN: the disconnect screen has no chat.

Built from commit a5c0211 (2026-10-10).

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.1

OpenBFME v0.3.0-preview.1 is a preview build for testers.
Install or update it with the OpenBFME Launcher. You need your own installs of The Rise of the Witch-king 2.01 and The Battle for Middle-earth II 1.06: the game loads its files from them.

What's new

• Movies play: the start-up movies and the campaign movies are shown, not just heard.
• Control groups and hotkeys work: Ctrl+number makes a group, the number selects it, a double press jumps the camera there; camera bookmarks and the command bar's letter hotkeys work.
• Force-attack on units and buildings: hold Ctrl and click a target, even one of your own.
• Health bars, levels and building progress: selected or hovered units show their health bar, buildings show their structure bars and construction percentage, battalions show veterancy marks, and a selected hero shows level and experience under the portrait.
• Fortress maps start in the fortress: on Helm's Deep and the other fortress maps you own the map's fortress, and gates open and close with their button.
• The radar looks like the original: a dot for every soldier, hero halos, the fortress ring, walls in their shape, the gold view box and attack pings on the Palantir.
• Create-a-Hero: My Heroes opens the hero builder; pick a class, powers and colours, name your hero and save it.
• The launcher can download the games for you, if you own them, through the BFME Foundation's All In One service, with every file checked.
• Clicks pick like the original: your own units win a click over enemies behind them.
• Stereo sound matches the original: sounds pan left and right the way the game's sound engine does.
• Free camera option in the launcher to zoom out further (not part of the original, off by default).

What's fixed

• The campaign is visible: the menu backdrop no longer covers a mission, and no developer text appears on screen.
• Units no longer run in place in melee fights.
• The Options crash (Advanced, then Done) is fixed.
• Easier bug reports: Logs in the menus and Open log folder in error and crash messages.

Known issues

• Only the English versions of the two games are supported; a game in another language is refused on the first start.
• Campaign: missions play with their movies and narration, but there is no campaign menu between missions and no saving of your progress the original way; the next mission loads directly. Loading screens do not show the mission picture.
• Save / Load and War of the Ring are not available yet. Skirmish, the campaign and LAN games are.
• Create-a-Hero: heroes can be built, coloured and saved, but how the house colour blends into the model is an educated guess, and the colour is not reapplied to lower-detail textures the way the original may do.
• Tribute (sending resources to an ally) does not work yet.
• Team colours on units and buildings are an educated guess at how the original blends them, and may look different.
• The computer opponent builds a base, trains armies, attacks and finishes games, but does not yet defend, expand or use heroes the way the original does.
• Enemy buildings destroyed out of your sight disappear at once instead of staying in the fog until you look again.
• Some sounds are missing: units being damaged, scripted music and parts of the big-battle ambience.
• Movies have no subtitles.
• Menus are laid out for 1024x768 and scaled: at other window sizes text and click targets can be slightly off. Widescreen camera framing may differ from the original.
• Menus cannot be used with the keyboard or a gamepad, only with the mouse.
• The Options screen's advanced page is not done, and some lists and boxes of a menu show through pop-ups placed over them.
• Ctrl+click on a unit or building force-attacks it, but Ctrl+click on the ground does not attack the spot yet.
• Radar: attacks raise pings, but scripted pings, the Ring and beacon markers, and the "under attack" voice lines are missing.
• Every game is recorded as a replay and can be watched from Load Replay, but replays cannot be saved under a name, there are no replay controls, and the score screen's graphs are simplified.
• LAN: the disconnect screen has no chat.

Built from commit 23b6e81 (2026-10-10).

Playtest 0.2.0-playtest.3

Playtest with lockstep mode/port logging for dual-client multiplayer evidence. Commit 8462fe6.

Playtest 0.2.0-playtest.2

Playtest RC with multi-pack map GLB resolution so Fords skirmish and multiplayer match boot can complete. Includes commit e523b83 (cross-pack bound GLB resolve + battlefield containment).