Dark Engine - Source Code

Source Code

In 2009, a complete copy of the Dark Engine source code was discovered in the possession of an ex-Looking Glass Studios employee who was at the time continuing his work for Eidos Interactive. The code was a complete set of the engine's resources, and included the libraries needed to compile the code. Fans of the Thief and System Shock series subsequently petitioned the publisher to consider releasing the code. The ramifications of releasing this set of code is currently being reviewed by lawyers at the company.

In late April 2010, a user on the Dreamcast Talk forum disassembled the contents of a Dreamcast development kit he had purchased. The contents of the kit included, among other things, items pertaining to ports of Thief 2 and System Shock 2 to that system. By December 2010, it had been discovered by the user and subsequently the greater Looking Glass Studios fan community that a compact disk included with the kit - the contents of which had been uploaded to the Internet - included a second copy of the Dark Engine source, minus the libraries needed to compile the code.

In September 2012, a significant update to the Dark Engine was published anonymously in a French forum, most probably based on the leaked Dreamcast source code. The update introduced support for recent graphics and sound hardware, as well as better support for newer versions of Windows.