OpenRA Playtest 20150118 has been released.

Hello everyone. A couple of days ago, the OpenRA Playtest 20150118 was released. For those who are not aware of OpenRA, it is a RTS game engine that is being used to create a better experience for old Command & Conquer games such as C&C95 and Red Alert 1, as well as Dune 2000. There will be a Tiberian Sun mod for it sometime in the future, hopefully.

This release implements some of the missing features that make Dune 2000 unique, such as Carryalls and Sandworms. Red Alert 1's mod has received countries. There are also improvements on stability and performance. Here are the feature highlights:

- Added carryalls and sandworms to the Dune 2000 mod
- Added countries (with their own unique abilities) to the Red Alert mod.
- Added an often requested lobby option for disabling the “Short Game” mode.
- Improved performance and memory usage across the board.
- Added hardware cursors support for smoother mouse movements.
- Added new missions: GDI 03, Soviet 01 as well as Survival 01 and 02.
- Fixed Fort Lonestar and the Dropzone minigames not starting.


Here are some screenies that shows some of these features such as countries (RA1) and carryall with sandworms (Dune2k):






Regarding the upcoming Tiberian Sun mod for OpenRA, they've shown some progress from their development with the pictures below showing heightmaps implemented with TMP files and their map editor that was revamped to use the game's rendering engine.






And that's all for now. Head to OpenRA.net to download the latest version. Have fun and submit your feedback to them.