If you just want to run a pre-built version of the code, see Installation.

You can download the OpenRA source code either from the Releases page (we suggest using the -source.tar.bz2, which are pre-configured with the correct in-game version strings), or using Git. If you want to modify OpenRA and share your changes with others then we strongly recommend that you follow the instructions in the contributing guide to fetch OpenRA using Git. If you just want to play OpenRA, the tarballs provide a lower barrier to entry.

If you have an old Git version downloaded and make all returns errors, execute make clean first to fix those (#16370).

OpenRA includes a helper script called make.cmd that can automatically configure and build the source code without requiring external tools.

You can then run make.cmd again and choose the all option to compile the code. Run launch-game.cmd and select a mod to launch the game.

If you download the source code using Git and want to play online, you must run make.cmd with the version command to set the in-game version string. This step is not required if you download the source tarball.

• Open OpenRA.sln with Visual Studio 2022 (OpenRA uses .NET 6, which VS2019 and previous versions don't work with).
• Right click on the OpenRA project (Solution 'OpenRA') in Solution Explorer → Properties. Change Single startup project into "OpenRA.Launcher".
• Compile by going to Build → Build Solution (F6 / Ctrl + Shift + B).
• Start the game by going to Debug → Start Debugging (F5) or Debug → Start Without Debugging (Ctrl + F5).
• If you want to run the unit tests, go to the NuGet - Solution tab, in the Browse tab, search for "Nunit3TestAdapter" and install it.

May require manually installing the C# extension for VSCode!

• Open OpenRA's folder with Visual Studio Code.
• Start the game by going to Run → Start Debugging (F5) or Run → Start Without Debugging (Ctrl + F5).

OpenRA uses several external libraries to provide low-level functionality. Most systems will already include these, but if OpenRA fails to compile or run, then you should make sure that these are available:

• .NET Core
• SDL 2 (optional)
• Lua 5.1 with dev libraries (optional)
• Make
• FreeType (optional)
• OpenAL (optional)
• curl or wget
• unzip
• xdg-utils (Linux only)

Check INSTALL.md for the exact package names on a variety of distros.

From a terminal in the OpenRA source directory:

• Build the source with make all. If you want to use system dependencies for the optional libraries, run make TARGETPLATFORM=unix-generic.
• If you want to play online, you must run make version to set the in-game version string. This step is not required if you download the source tarball.
• Run the game with launch-game.sh. You can also use Visual Studio Code to edit, build and debug. It also features extensions for Lua, Fluent and the OpenRA markup language MiniYAML.