[tholman]

Amazingly the source code for the Heroes of Might and Magic 3 expansions was lost for years, so they've not often been included in the HD ports. Someone has (apparently) dug it up on an old hard drive [1] though a few screenshots isn't a true proof.

Knowing that a huge organization has lost such a treasured codebase has insured that I backup almost every piece of code I ever write... after 10 years of development I dip back in every now and then and look at what younger me was working on, always brings a smile to my face.

1. https://twitter.com/diskblitz/status/920801845349466113

[kilburn]

Heck, even Starcraft's source code was lost by Blizzard. It was then recovered thanks to a random guy finding a golden master source code disk in a "blizzard stuff box" he bought through ebay https://mashable.com/article/starcraft-source-disc

[p_l]

While it's common in general, I wonder how much the toxic fan reaction to the expansions could have driven "just forget it" approach to storing it.

For reference, HoMM3 expansions were to reintroduce the wider aspects of Might & Magic world back to HoMM (as the series before essentially dealt with small skirmishes little related to the main storyline). Thing is, despite the name, Might & Magic is ... science-fiction more than normal epic fantasy. And a lot of HoMM fans were unaware of the fact, and there was a bit of toxic reaction when the high-tech aspects were shown in previews.

[dreen]

Unfortunately this is very common. The source to most classics is lost forever.

[salamandersauce]

Yup. For Kingdom Hearts 1.5 they recreated the whole game from assets off the PS2 disc because they lost it all which is nuts.

[suifbwish]

In 100 hours, the complete binaries to any classic game, an OS emulator and this software: https://ghidra-sre.org/releaseNotes_10.0beta.html a skilled person could probably give you source code that compiles and runs the game.

[KerrAvon]

Diskblitz is reputable, for what it’s worth.

[southerntofu]

And that's precisely why it should be illegal to release software without the source code, just like it's illegal for supermarkets to sell foods without a list of ingredients.

(I'm not suggesting passing around a binary should always be illegal, eg. between friends on a USB key, but commercial publication should include source)