OpenSourceGames

Widelands continues to grow as a great free and open source Settlers-like strategy game, with a brand new holiday release out now. It's fun seeing projects like this continue on for so long, especially as I grew up playing the likes of The Settlers on the Amiga and later Settlers 2 on PC. Good times, absolute classics.

The game has singleplayer and multiplayer support, with the developers noting it was originally inspired by Settlers 2 but has "significantly more variety and depth to it".

This year, Flightgear had 3 releases, see the highlights below

FlightGear 2024.1.1 (27 February 2025)

• Real-time dynamic shadows and lights
• Preliminary support for VR headsets using OpenXR
• Preview of World Scenery 3.0 (a scenery system that uses LOD for improved fps, memory usage, and visible range)
• Added region-specific random building textures
• Improved performance and stability of randomly generated trees
• More realistic AI
• Added the Milky Way to the night sky
• Fixed bugs, memory leaks, and a high-severity security vulnerability.

FlightGear 2024.1.2 (18 September 2025)

• Added support for incremental updates
• 2024.1 is now available for MacOS as well.
• Added FFmpeg to allow exporting video on windows
• Fixes, updates and translations

FlightGear 2024.1.3 (2 November 2025)

• Added FFmpeg to allow exporting video on MacOS
• Added offline mode to the launcher
• Fixes and translation updates

Flight gear has also joined OpenCollective this year, which has allowed them to raise money for a more reliable download experience ad to cover server hosting.

Since the release of version 1.2, we implemented several hundreds of new features and bugfixes; for example, to name just a few of the highlights:

• Market trading
• Six new maps added and three old maps removed
• Economy districts
• Many improvements to the in-game Encyclopedia
• Download website maps as add-ons
• New visualisation modes in the editor
• Many new capabilities for add-on developers
• Complete translation Czech, Dutch, German, Hungarian ( ⅔ for 9 more languages)

[complete changelog](https://www.widelands.org/changelog/

Cannon Fodder is a retro action-strategy gem from 1993 that was originally released on my old love the Amiga, and the modern open source port just got upgraded. Open Fodder works with Cannon Fodder 1 and Cannon Fodder 2 which you need need the original data files to play it which you can grab from GOG.

The open source game engine adds in a number of enhancements to run it on modern PC platforms, and includes a random map system to play through too.

New experimental game by Wize Wizard games.
The game is built with javascript, three.js and the help of AI.

wdyt?

A vanilla JavaScript, browser-based, "Punk Rock Coding" engine built on THREE.js (r147). RiftScape is a fast-paced, grid-based action RPG that also shares a blend of survival and survivor elements.

🎮 Play RiftScape | 📦 itch.io Page | 💻 Source Code

Welcome all to this very special devblog celebrating the release of Thrive version 1.0! This release marks the completion of the Microbe Stage, the first stage of the 9 planned. The Microbe stage will continue to be supported with balancing and bug fix updates, and volunteers are welcome to continue to make contributions to it. But our main development efforts will now focus on our second stage, Multicellular. read more...

One of the lesser known Fedora spins under the "Fedora Labs" initiative is the Fedora Games Lab that showcases some open-source games and can serve as an easy demonstrator for Linux gaming. Looking forward to 2026 with Fedora 44, there is a proposal to revitalize Fedora Games Lab to become a better showcase for the modern potential of Linux gaming.

Fedora Games Lab as it is right now just is a showcase of Fedora with the Xfce desktop and installing a few open-source games by default. They include classic titles such as BZFlag and Freeciv to games popular among Linux die-hards like Extreme Tux Racer as well as some more well known open-source game efforts like Battle for Wesnoth and Warzone 2100.

Quake II RTX released back in 2019, with NVIDIA using it to show off more ray tracing effects for their RTX GPUs but now they're done with it. It's still free on Steam and the project behind it is open source, but NVIDIA aren't doing any more with it now.

Noted on the GitHub page is a message that it has been discontinued, and the GitHub repository has been archived. They did one small final release version 1.8.1 with a few fixes but that's it now.

Best puzzle game collection out there imo! Perfect time "waster".

Contains the following 40 games: Black Box, Bridges, Cube, Dominosa, Fifteen, Filling, Flip, Flood, Galaxies, Guess, Inertia, Keen, Light Up, Loopy, Magnets, Map, Mines (Minesweeper), Mosaic, Net, Netslide, Palisade, Pattern, Pearl, Pegs (Solitaire), Range, Rectangles, Same Game, Signpost, Singles, Sixteen, Slant, Solo (Sudoku), Tents, Towers, Tracks, Twiddle, Undead, Unequal, Unruly, Untangle

Open source rocks so it's pleasing to see it go well for Facepunch with s&box. They've now added native Linux binaries for the dedicated server and game client. If you missed the open source news be sure to check the previous GamingOnLinux article.

As a quick reminder on what s&box is — "s&box is a game creation platform built on the Source 2 engine and our spiritual successor to Garry's Mod. Play, create, and share games, explore community creations, and experience endless sandbox fun with powerful modern tools."

With lots of enhancements for the classics Tomb Raider 1 and Tomb Raider 2, the TRX project version 1.0 is out now with an LUA scripting engine for modders.

So what exactly is TRX? It aims to enhance the classic Tomb Raiders games through decompilation and the implementation of open-source alternatives to proprietary components. TRX is a single engine capable of running TR1, TR2, and custom levels respecting each of the distinct, classic engines' mechanics.

Version 1.0 was released November 23rd bringing the two games together under one roof, and with a new LUA scripting engine that could be really fun for modders to do all sorts with the game. There's absolutely tons more that was added into this release like improved rendering, support for triangular geometry, support for additive blending in textures, a new easter egg command for TR1, support for TR2 weapons in TR1 and so much more.

Microsoft announced today that they're preserving a bit of history here - with Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III now officially and clearly open source. The source has been around for a while but now it's all proper.

From the announcement they said:

Today, we’re preserving a cornerstone of gaming history that is near and dear to our hearts. Together, Microsoft’s Open Source Programs Office (OSPO), Team Xbox, and Activision are making Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III available under the MIT License. Our goal is simple: to place historically important code in the hands of students, teachers, and developers so they can study it, learn from it, and, perhaps most importantly, play it.

Giving evolution a little bit more visual flair, Thrive is a scientific open source sim about surviving and growing as a tiny creature. A new release has arrived bringing with it some pretty big changes to how it looks, along with even more customization of your run.

What is it? You take control of an organism on an alien planet, starting off in the microbe stage. The game world and other creatures all evolve and change as you do. It's all quite science-focused too, although not too overloading. It's seriously cool.

Boxcars is a free and open source application for playing backgammon online and offline.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3182230/Boxcars/

Source code: https://codeberg.org/tslocum/boxcars

Website: https://bgammon.org/

We are also using it to test the new PeerTube instance of f-hub.org

https://pr0game.com/

Classic version of the now P2W cult browser game OGame. They are starting a new universe in November (teaser trailer https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QfSfS2yxqJ4 ) Code is at https://codeberg.org/pr0game/pr0game

VCMI / HoMM3

OpenGothic / Gothic 1 and Gothic 2

OpenWM / Morrowind

OpenMohaa / Medal of Honor

Also Quake 1,2,3 and probably some more.