GeneralsVR

I'm turning Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour into a VR game.

Not a remake, not a port to another engine. This is the original game, running natively in a VR headset. You stand over the battlefield like a general at a war table: look around the map, point a laser to select your units, give orders with the motion controllers, build your base, and resize yourself from "the whole war on a table" down to "standing among the tanks".

Early alpha, looking for testers. It's playable end to end (skirmish), but expect rough edges. Found a bug? Open an issue and attach the files from %LOCALAPPDATA%\GeneralsVR\Debug. That folder is exactly why it exists: it makes your report ten times more useful to me.

What you need

• Your own copy of Zero Hour. Steam (C&C Ultimate Collection), EA app, Origin, GOG, or a retail disc all work. This project contains none of the game's assets, so it does not work without a real installation. (The launcher finds Steam/EA/GOG automatically; for anything else it asks you to point it at your game folder once.)
• Meta Quest 3 with Quest Link (cable or Air Link). Other PC VR headsets are untested.
• A Vulkan-capable gaming PC.

Install

Before you start: install Zero Hour from Steam and launch it once, then install the Meta Quest Link app, connect the headset, and set Meta as the active OpenXR runtime (Quest Link app → Settings → General).

Then:

1. Download GeneralsVR-v*.zip from the latest release.
2. Extract it into its own folder (right-click → Extract All, or drag it out of the zip). Anywhere is fine, your Desktop or Downloads both work.
3. Open that folder and double-click START-GeneralsVR.
   • Windows SmartScreen may warn about an unrecognized app. That's normal for an unsigned community mod; click More info → Run anyway.
   • It'll ask for administrator permission once (to write the registry entries the game needs) and put a GeneralsVR shortcut on your desktop.
4. Put the headset on, press Enter in the launcher, start a Skirmish, and look around.

From then on just use the GeneralsVR desktop shortcut.

Tip: the headset only shows the battlefield. It stays dark in the menus. You won't see anything until you're actually in a skirmish.

Your Zero Hour install is never touched. Everything lives in its own folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\GeneralsVR), and no game files are copied or changed. To uninstall, delete that folder and the desktop shortcut (or run GeneralsVR.ps1 -Uninstall).

What's in the folder

Since v0.2.0 the install is organized so you always know where things are:

• START-GeneralsVR at the top: the only thing you ever need to double-click.
• Data\: the game build itself (generalszhv.exe and everything it needs). Don't start it directly; it only works when the launcher points it at your game.
• Debug\: every log the game writes lands here. Reporting a bug? Attach the files from %LOCALAPPDATA%\GeneralsVR\Debug, mainly DebugLogFile.txt and xrhost_log.txt. They contain no personal data, just what the game and the VR host were doing.
• Data\Enhanced\: drop an upscaled texture pack in here (keeping its folder structure) and flip Assets to Enhanced in the VR settings menu to use it. Ships empty; I can't bundle EA-derived packs.

The launcher auto-updates to my newest build every time you play. If an update ever breaks something for you, press V in the launcher and pick the previous version. You stay on it until you switch back.

Prefer one click? (optional)

Instead of the zip, you can download GeneralsVR-Setup.cmd from the release and run it. It downloads and sets everything up for you, no extracting. The zip above is the manual route and does exactly the same thing.

Controls

See VR-CONTROLS.md.

Open source this stands on

• EA's official source release of Generals/Zero Hour (GPL v3): the game code itself.
• TheSuperHackers/GeneralsGameCode: the community project that modernized that code so it builds and runs today. This repo is a fork of it; everything VR is mine, everything else is theirs and upstream's.
• DXVK: translates the game's ancient DirectX 8 rendering to Vulkan, which is what makes a modern VR pipeline possible at all.
• OpenXR SDK: the open standard that talks to the headset.

Is this legal?

Yes. EA released this game's source code under the GPL v3 in 2025, and GeneralsVR is a modification of that source, published under the same license. No EA assets, art, audio or data are distributed. All of that stays inside your own Steam installation.

Support the project

I build this as a solo developer, and I fund the time for it between freelance gigs. If you're enjoying GeneralsVR and you're able to, sponsoring me makes a real difference: the more support this gets, the more freelance work I can turn down and the more time goes straight into VR.

And the bigger plan: once Zero Hour is solid, I want to bring the other Command & Conquer games into VR too. Every sponsor gets me closer to making that the main thing I do. No pressure at all if you can't; starring the repo and sending bug reports helps just as much. 🫡

License

GPL v3. See LICENSE.md.