Quake Live Source Reconstruction Project

This project reconstructs the full Quake Live source code as faithfully as possible. It starts from the public Quake III Arena GPL source release and then rebuilds the retail engine and game code piece by piece using retail binaries, committed HLIL and Ghidra reference corpora, symbol maps, and runtime validation.

Accurate reconstruction is the top priority. This repository is not trying to make a "Quake Live-like" fork or a rough gameplay approximation. The goal is to reconstruct how the retail game actually works, document what is known, and close the remaining gaps in a way that stays grounded in evidence instead of guesswork.

What accurate reconstruction means here

• Retail Quake Live behavior is the target, not convenience or approximation.
• The committed retail reference corpus is treated as the source of truth when the open GPL baseline and the retail game differ.
• Where evidence is incomplete, small intuitive fixes or compatibility wiring may still be needed to keep the reconstruction working, but they should stay minimal and give way to stronger evidence when it appears.
• Unclear areas are tracked as open gaps instead of being filled in with confident-looking assumptions.
• Quake Live-specific online services can be disabled in builds when the retail dependency cannot yet be reconstructed cleanly or does not have an open replacement.
• Progress is measured by parity with the retail game, not just by whether the code builds or runs.

Current status

Note: The parity audit figures shown below reflect a coarse-level review of module boundaries and subsystem registration. They do not imply the reconstruction is finished or production-ready. At a granular level — individual functions, edge-case behaviour, data layout, and runtime correctness — a great deal of testing and fixing remains to be done before the reconstruction can be considered truly complete.

The project is now in the final exactness and validation phase for the current audited register. The strict retail-facing module register for cgame, qagame, and ui is closed, and the consolidated 2026-04-10 engine audit now records qcommon, client, server, renderer, and the remaining engine host/support surface as closed too.

That does not mean the repository is "done." The active work queue is now narrower: ownerdraw/stat payload completion, targeted gameplay validation, and normal refresh of the subsystem parity gates and runtime evidence whenever audited contracts change. The biggest remaining repo work is no longer broad engine-host reconstruction.

Based on the focused parity audits published between 2026-04-05 and 2026-04-10 and the consolidated engine-wide audit published on 2026-04-10:

Legend: 🟢 closed or effectively complete in the current audited register, 🟡 strong but still open, 🔴 major open reconstruction lane.

Game reconstruction

Area	Status	Strict retail parity	Current snapshot
cgame	🟢	100%	Closed in the combined strict-retail module audit; the direct cgame suite is green (170 passed).
qagame	🟢	100%	Closed in the combined strict-retail module audit; retail qagamex86.dll hosting is validated.
ui	🟢	100%	UI parity gate, retail corpus parity, bundle reproducibility, and runtime evidence are all green.

Engine reconstruction

Area	Status	Strict retail parity	Current snapshot
client	🟢	100%	Dedicated parity gate and tracked runtime evidence are both closed.
renderer	🟢	100%	Final text/font/runtime closure landed in the RG-P11 audit pass.
qcommon	🟢	100%	Dedicated gate and runtime evidence now close bootstrap, filesystem, collision-leaf, fallback-VM, and ledger/runtime proof work.
server	🟢	100%	Steam GameServer lifecycle, idZMQ, stat/achievement ownership, control-plane CVars, rankings compatibility, and dedicated runtime evidence are closed.
engine host/support	🟢	100%	Win32 clipboard/raw-input recovery, botlib internal proof, and host/support boundary formalisation are closed; compatibility-only lanes are explicit exclusions.

Compatibility-only surfaces are still called out explicitly rather than being counted as open strict-retail engine debt: platform_services.c, the open/hybrid auth backends, the unix/null ports, and live online-service activation behind QL_BUILD_ONLINE_SERVICES.

For the detailed parity breakdown and current task queue, see AUDIT.md, IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md, and docs/reverse-engineering/engine-full-parity-audit-and-implementation-plan-2026-04-10.md.

Repository guide

• src/ contains the active reconstructed codebase built on top of the Quake III Arena GPL source layout.
• src-re/ is the clean-room reconstruction workspace used for staged reconstruction work, prototypes, and promoted headers.
• references/ holds the main reconstruction reference corpus, including HLIL exports and the committed Ghidra corpus.
• assets/ stores upstream and retail reference material used for validation and comparison.
• docs/ contains onboarding notes, workflow guides, parity documentation, and subsystem research.
• tests/, tools/, artifacts/, and logs/ support the deterministic validation and CI workflows used to check reconstruction progress.

Reference corpus

The project keeps its main evidence base in the repository so work can be reviewed and replayed:

• references/hlil/ contains Binary Ninja HLIL dumps for both Quake III Arena and Quake Live binaries.
• references/reverse-engineering/ghidra/ contains the committed Ghidra exports used as a structured companion corpus.
• references/symbol-maps/ and references/analysis/quakelive_symbol_aliases.json support naming, ownership, and symbol recovery work.

If you are tracing a subsystem, start with the committed reference material before making new assumptions. The canonical workflow is documented in docs/reverse-engineering/ghidra-reference-workflow.md.

Getting started

• Read docs/onboarding/overview.md for the quickest project orientation.
• Read BUILDING.md for the top-level build guide and the most common Windows and Linux build commands.
• Read docs/repo-overview.md for a fuller explanation of the repository layout.
• Use docs/platform/toolchain-matrix.md to understand build requirements and supported toolchains.
• Use docs/reverse-engineering/ghidrassist-mcp.md and related notes if you are working through the reconstruction reference workflow.

Credits

• This project builds on the public Quake III Arena GPL source release from id Software: id-Software/Quake-III-Arena
• This project exists to reconstruct the retail Quake Live codebase as accurately as possible: Quake Live