Zero Hour Reforged on Android: the New Engine in ZeroFront

Zero Hour Reforged on Android now runs inside ZeroFront. The app has two engines, and when you tap Play it asks which one to launch. Classic is the proven ZeroFront engine with every supported mod and network play. Reforged is a new engine built from the source EA opened: the computer opponent builds a base, vehicles accelerate and brake, and lighting and shadows look much closer to a modern game. The game files are the same ones you already use, and network play is not available in Reforged yet.

What Zero Hour Reforged is

Reforged is a fan project built on the Generals and Zero Hour source that EA published in 2025 under the GPL-3.0 licence. It is led by olcayseygan together with community contributors. The code was moved to 64-bit, around 60 bugs the game had carried since 2003 were found and fixed, and the behaviour of the computer opponent was rewritten. On PC the project installs through a launcher from zerohour.gg, and the source is on GitHub.

We built the Android version ourselves. The engine draws through Vulkan, and touch gestures follow the ZeroFront scheme, described on the controls page.

Reforged is not an official EA remaster. EA's 2020 Command & Conquer Remastered Collection covers Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert, and there is no remaster of Generals. The story, units and maps stay the same. What changes is the engine under them.

What is new in Reforged

The computer opponent

In the 2003 version a single wrong value made the skirmish AI build only its urgent items and one power plant. In Reforged it builds a full base, expands to new supply piles, keeps its supply trucks working and defends what it takes.

It also used to cheat: it saw through the fog of war and read your start position straight from the lobby. Now it sends out a scout, counts only what it has seen, and works out where you are from how many start positions are still unchecked. The difficulty levels (Easy, Medium and Hard) differ in the decisions the computer is allowed to make. Nobody gets extra money, faster building or longer sight.

Controlling your units

• Tanks and cars take about a second to pick up speed and to brake, instead of starting at full speed on the first frame and stopping dead.
• Turrets keep firing on the move. A vehicle driving past a target used to fire once and fall silent.
• Infantry turn on their feet and stop in a few steps instead of sliding backwards.
• A group moves as a column: each unit keeps its own line and goes round a slower one when there is room, so the column no longer queues behind one damaged truck.
• Helicopters fly like helicopters: they set off at once and turn their nose on the way, instead of swinging round on the spot like a tank.
• Selected units draw a line to the target of their order with a flag in your colour, so you can see who is going where.

Veterancy

In the original, the unit that fired the last shot took all the experience. Two Crusaders could grind an Overlord down to a sliver while a passing Humvee took every point. In Reforged the killing blow earns a quarter, and the rest is shared among everything that damaged the target in the last ten seconds, by how much health each one took off. Healing earns experience too.

Graphics

Explosions light the ground around them and fires light the smoke above. A helicopter's shadow softens and pales as it climbs, and soldiers and trees cast shadows from their shape. The ground is drawn at twice the detail.

On the phone these effects are controlled in Reforged settings. The "Simple graphics (faster)" switch keeps lighting and shadows as in the 2003 original and is lighter on the phone. Turn it off to get the new picture. It changes only the image, not the engine or the interface.

Interface

The command bar in Reforged is one console in the middle of the bottom edge, made for wide phone screens. The panel for a selected unit shows its damage, damage per second, range and how its armour handles bullets, shells and rockets next to the portrait. When someone builds, charges or fires a superweapon, its name flashes under the match clock. Reforged settings let you go back to the classic bar layout.

2003 bugs and balance

Fixes include an AI that could not build a base, tanks that reached top speed instantly and helicopters that turned like tanks. The full list is kept by the Reforged author in the project's changelog.

Besides bug fixes, Reforged had one balance pass: defences no longer die cheaper than they cost, and the Dragon Tank, Quad Cannon, Paladin and Rocket Buggy were brought into line.

Classic or Reforged: which to pick

If you play skirmishes against the computer on a recent phone, try Reforged. For network games, mods and weak phones, pick Classic. You can switch between the engines every time you launch.

How to launch Reforged on your phone

Mods on Reforged

Contra 009, Contra 007 and Project Raptor start on Reforged too: the mod choice in the app is shared by both engines. They are tested better on Classic, so Classic stays the main engine for mods.

Some Reforged changes edit game data: unit balance and AI settings. They apply to a mod only if the mod has the unit or weapon the change is written for. The app skips the rest on purpose, because a patch for a unit that does not exist would otherwise crash the launch. Changes in the engine code, such as vehicle movement and the new interface, stay in force. A mod keeps its own AI scripts.

More on the mods themselves: Contra 009 on a phone, Contra 007, Project Raptor, and the rest in the mod table.

Phone requirements

• Android 10 or newer.
• Vulkan 1.1: the app checks this itself and shows the reason on the Reforged card if your phone does not qualify.
• 4 GB of RAM or more is recommended.

Reforged is heavier than Classic. On budget phones it may stutter or fail to start. There is no list of supported models, so test it on your own phone: the first 24 hours are free and cover both engines.

Frequently asked questions