The Settlers (Freeserf)

Game: The Settlers → (DOS, 1993)

Freeserf: an open-source reimplementation of The Settlers (also known as Serf City), Blue Byte’s strategy game, that uses the data from the original’s DOS or Amiga version and loads its saved games too. Version 0.4 (October 4), the first release since 0.3 in 2019, moved the project to SDL3, fixed many game logic bugs by comparing it with the Amiga original, and added the original’s special click and ambient sounds; 0.5, the next day, added the Amiga original’s AI for opponents in missions and custom games, the castle’s emergency program, the six tutorials, the end of the game, zoom, autosave, and an option to mix graphics, sounds, and music from different versions. Since then it has added translations of the texts and a TrueType font made from the DOS original’s. The DOS version’s MIDI music plays through a free SoundFont, TimGM6mb, which is included. There are builds for Windows (32- and 64-bit), Linux, and macOS. About 50 of its last 100 commits, from October 4 to 6, list Claude as a co-author.

You needThe data files from your own copy of The Settlers: from the DOS version, the SPAE.PA, SPAD.PA, SPAF.PA, or SPAU.PA file, depending on the language, or from the Amiga version, the gfxheader, gfxfast, gfxchip, gfxpics, sounds, and music files. They go next to the executable or in ~/.local/share/freeserf, and data from several versions can be installed together. Plus Windows, Linux, or macOS.

How it gets to PC

Fan reimplementation

Console

MS-DOS

Original studio

Blue Byte

Year

1994

Author

freeserf

Stars

344

Last activity

2026-10-23 · 8 days ago

Latest version

v0.5 · 2026-10-05

License

GPL-3.0

Language

C++

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