OpenMW for iOS

An experimental iPhone and iPad port of OpenMW. The first milestone is a signed, arm64 device build that reaches the OpenMW main menu using game files supplied by the user.

Current scope

• OpenMW 0.51.0
• Physical arm64 iPhone/iPad builds
• SDL2 for the iOS application and input layer
• GL4ES translating OpenMW's desktop OpenGL calls to OpenGL ES
• Statically linked native dependencies
• No Qt launcher, OpenMW-CS, wizard, or bundled Morrowind assets

The repository currently contains the reproducible source/dependency bootstrap, the first iOS platform patch, the native path bridge, and the Xcode-generation scripts. It intentionally does not include Bethesda game data.

Requirements

• Apple Silicon or Intel Mac
• Xcode with the iOS SDK and command-line tools
• CMake 3.28+
• Ninja
• Git, Python 3, autoconf, automake, libtool, and pkg-config
• An Apple development team for installation on a physical device

Homebrew example:

brew install cmake ninja autoconf automake libtool pkg-config

Bootstrap

./scripts/bootstrap.sh
./scripts/build-ios.sh

The second command builds the third-party libraries and generates build/ios/OpenMW.xcodeproj. Open that project, select the openmw target, set your development team and bundle identifier, and run on a physical device.

GitHub Actions build

The Build iOS workflow performs the macOS/Xcode work remotely, matching the workflow used for eDukeiOS. Push this repository to GitHub and either run the workflow manually from the Actions tab or push to main/port/**.

Each successful run produces:

• OpenMW-iOS-unsigned-<run> containing the unsigned .ipa and .app
• OpenMW-iOS-diagnostics-<run> containing configure/build logs and the Xcode result bundle

The first artifact is intentionally unsigned. It can later be signed with a development certificate, AltStore-style tooling, or a configured signing job. During initial porting, the diagnostics artifact is the important output: it lets us address the dependency, compiler, and linker failures without needing a local Mac.

You can override signing settings when generating the project:

DEVELOPMENT_TEAM=ABCDE12345 \
PRODUCT_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER=com.example.openmw \
./scripts/build-ios.sh

Game files during the bootstrap milestone

The initial engine build expects the following writable sandbox layout:

Documents/OpenMW/
  openmw.cfg
  settings.cfg
  Morrowind/
    Data Files/
      Morrowind.esm
      Morrowind.bsa
      ...

If openmw.cfg is absent, the bootstrap creates it automatically when it finds Morrowind/Data Files/Morrowind.esm, including Tribunal and Bloodmoon when present. The native file importer will replace this manual layout after the engine boot path is verified. Until then, files can be installed through Xcode's Devices and Simulators window or Finder file sharing when UIFileSharingEnabled is on.

Build design

vcpkg cross-compiles the conventional libraries for arm64-ios. GL4ES is built independently because it supplies the OpenGL compatibility layer. OpenMW builds its own pinned OpenSceneGraph, MyGUI, Bullet, Recast, and SQLite copies so that its upstream patches remain intact.

The patches in patches/openmw are always applied to a clean, pinned OpenMW checkout. scripts/bootstrap.sh verifies the exact revisions before applying them, making failures visible instead of silently building a different engine.

Non-goals for milestone one

• App Store submission
• Simulator builds
• Mod manager UI
• Touch-control customization
• Metal renderer
• Shipping copyrighted Morrowind assets

Those come after the renderer and lifecycle have been validated on hardware.