It's hard to overstate how good the first "Far Cry" was. And the influence is huge: It is the game that made developer Crytek a household name and spawned one of Ubisoft's biggest and most famous series. But it is 19 years old, a veritable Aeon in video game terms, and the passage of time is definitely visible and palpable: it's time for it to shine.

Surprisingly, thanks to a leak of the original "Far Cry" source code that recently appeared "out of nowhere" in the Internet Archive, we may actually be able to get our hands on it at some point in the not too distant future.

The leak is for version 1.34, which one reviewer has stated is not actually complete, but close to it.

"My guess is that this is a leak of the source tree for the PC version to add support for Ubisoft's game launcher/DRM." Some original files are included, but no Xbox code or game assets." Another reviewer claims to have been able to compile "with [a few] fixes in Visual Studio .NET 2003," but apparently not without many errors.

It is unclear exactly where this code leaked from and why someone suddenly dropped the source for a game that has been sitting idle for 20 years. At this time, no one has taken credit for the leak, and it is the first and only file uploaded by Internet Archive user Llaetha.ro. Members of the Far Cry 1 Community Discord, a Crytek with a special interest in the game who has a special interest in the game, shared it with a few friends "for study purposes" and intended to release it later, but one of them beat him to it (with unmistakable confidence).

What fans are more interested in at this point is what they will be able to do with the source code in hand. While "Far Cry" is still available for purchase (in fact, it's on sale for a whopping $3 during Steam's summer sale), its stale nature cannot be overlooked: Steam user sticky wrote that "stealth feels super janky, vehicles can feel super janky," and overall Overall, he also wrote, "It needs TLC in the form of a huge QoL rework mod."

That's where the source code comes in. Far Cry mods are already available thanks to the SDK and level editor being released long ago, but the availability of source code opens the door to more extensive reworking, as it allows users to make changes and modifications to the game engine itself.

While the Far Cry modding community is excited at the prospect of an RTX-compatible Far Cry with all of its initial rough edges smoothed out, members are very cautious, mindful that Ubisoft could bring the hammer down on the whole process at any time "We're not going to use the leaked source code," said one member. We have not received permission from Ubisoft to use the leaked source code." However, there is the [Driver] franchise that has been reverse engineered and has had many mods and even updates." In other cases, such as Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City, publishers have given permission to use the game's source code for non-commercial purposes.

Ubisoft has not yet commented on the leak, nor has it given any indication as to how it will respond to attempts to use the source code. One thing that could work against avid modders is that the Far Cry series remains very active: according to rumors in January, Ubisoft is currently working on a mainline single-player shooter, "Far Cry 7," and a multiplayer game, the spin-off "Far Cry," and may not be too keen on being thunderstruck by a fan project.

Regardless of that, there seems to be a very cautious wishful thinking prevailing among the Far Cry community at the moment. As one Discord user put it, "This game needs a breath of fresh air." "And if Ubisoft is willing to give permission to the modders, we would be very grateful to Ubisoft."

We've asked Ubisoft for comment and will update if we hear back. In case you forgot, Uwe Boll once made a Far Cry movie. For some reason, Anthony Bourdain is in it.