Syndicate Wars (SyndWarsFX)

Game: Syndicate Wars (DOS, 1996)

Syndicate Wars Fan Expansion: a port of the DOS version of Syndicate Wars, Bullfrog’s 1996 game, to modern systems, continuing the one created by Unavowed and Gynvael Coldwind. It was made by disassembling the original DOS executable and replacing the DOS-specific parts with platform-independent code: SDL for video and input, Vorbis for music, and OpenAL for sound. Whatever hasn’t been remade yet is still the original code, which is being rewritten in C function by function; because of that, according to the project, nothing is missing from the single-player campaign, and some cut and beta features have even been revived. Multiplayer doesn’t work, since the network code is missing. It adds resources that weren’t in the game, such as extra sounds and higher-resolution graphics, fan-made translations, and mouse capture. According to the project it runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS, but only as a 32-bit x86 program. It publishes pre-release builds for Windows, with an installer, and for Ubuntu; the latest, 0.3.8.4358, is from October 5. The installer and the install script copy the files from your CD or disc image and also download from GitHub, from the project’s own repositories, Bullfrog’s original graphics, sounds and voices, and maps and levels, with fixes from the community; the script has no option to skip that download. The repository includes the disassembly of the game’s executable (about 3.7 MB) and the game’s text, in English and seven other languages, as translation files.

You needYour own Syndicate Wars CD for PC or a disc image from a digital store (those from the best-known stores include one of the tested versions); the multilingual European and the US releases have been tested, and German requires the German release. The CD is only used during installation. Plus Windows or Linux on x86 (the program is 32-bit; on Linux, build it or use the Ubuntu package if your system is compatible) or macOS, building it yourself; to convert the CD music to Ogg Vorbis, cdparanoia and oggenc.

How it gets to PC

Port of a decompilation

Console

MS-DOS

Original studio

Bullfrog Productions

Year

1996

Author

Mefistotelis

Stars

268

Last activity

2026-10-30 · 1 day ago

Latest version

0.3.8.3283 · 2025-10-13

Language

C