GitHub has blocked the RE3 project repository and 232 forks, including three private repositories, following a complaint from Take-Two Interactive, which owns the intellectual property associated with GTA III and GTA Vice City. A US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) infringement claim was used to block. The RE3 code is still available on the GitHub mirror at archive.org. Access to the mirror on GitLab and to the repository in the AUR is already limited.
Recall that the re3 project carried out work on reverse engineering of the source codes of GTA III and GTA Vice City, released about 20 years ago. The published code was ready to assemble a fully working game, using game resource files that were proposed to be extracted from their licensed copy of GTA III. The code restoration project was launched in 2018 with the aim of fixing some bugs, expanding the possibilities for modders, and experimenting with studying and replacing physics simulation algorithms. In particular, RE3 ported to Linux, FreeBSD and ARM systems, added support for OpenGL, provided sound output through OpenAL, added additional debugging tools, implemented a rotating camera, added support for XInput, expanded support for peripherals, provided output scaling to widescreen screens, a map and additional options have been added to the menu.
It can be noted that the community is developing several open-source implementations of popular commercial games that require the use of game resource files from the original game. The key difference between these projects and the blocked RE3 is that RE3 is the result of reverse engineering of executable files, while the projects noted below are developed as independent engine implementations written from scratch.
- OpenAge is an open engine for Age of Empires, Age of Empires II (HD) and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds;
- OpenSAGE - open engine for Command & Conquer: Generals;
- OpenMW is an open source fantasy role-playing game engine The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind;
- OpenRA - open engine for Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn, C&C Red Alert and Dune 2000;
- OpenLoco is an open transport company simulator based on the game Locomotion;
- CorsixTH - open engine for Theme Hospital;
- OpenRCT2 is an open engine for the strategy game RollerCoaster Tycoon 2.
Source: opennet.ru