OpenSEEK revives the Amiga and DOS military action game Seek and Destroy

Seek and Destroy is getting a new engine. The 1990s military action game, first released on the Amiga and later brought to DOS, is being rebuilt through an open-source project called openSEEK. This isn’t a simple compatibility patch or a wrapper around the old executable. The engine is being written again from scratch, with the original game data used to recreate how Seek and Destroy actually plays. That means the missions, vehicles and basic structure stay familiar, while the technology underneath them changes completely.

A new engine built from scratch

OpenSEEK is written in Lua and runs on the LÖVE2D framework. The developer has studied the original game’s files and behaviour, but the new engine doesn’t rely on the original source code. That’s an important distinction. This isn’t a traditional source port. Instead, the project recreates the game by examining how the original works and then building those systems again in modern code.

A large part of the game is already playable. There’s still some work to do before a public release, though. One of the main issues involves the original assets. OpenSEEK can’t simply package commercial game files with the engine, so an automated extraction tool is being prepared. Players will need their own copy of Seek and Destroy, and the tool will pull out the data needed by the new engine. The public code repository is also being cleaned up so it doesn’t contain files taken directly from the commercial release.

The graphics and controls are changing too

OpenSEEK isn’t trying to reproduce every technical limitation of the old game. One obvious example is rotation. The original version relied on prerendered graphics when turning the battlefield. The new engine uses real transformations instead, allowing the game world to rotate more smoothly without needing the same collection of prepared images.

It’s a small technical change on paper, but it affects how the whole game looks in motion. The project also introduces updated visual effects and changes to the tank controls. That’s relevant because Seek and Destroy isn’t only about flying an Apache helicopter. A large part of the game also puts the player behind the controls of a heavily armed ground vehicle.

The new version reportedly moves at a slightly faster pace as well, with difficulty adjusted upwards compared with the original. Multiplayer is getting attention too.

The Amiga release already had an unusual two-player helicopter mode where one person controlled the aircraft and the other handled the weapons. OpenSEEK expands on the multiplayer side of the game inside the new engine. It also makes use of alternative helicopter graphics found inside the original data files, including appearances that players normally wouldn’t see during regular gameplay.

Seek and Destroy began on the Amiga

Seek and Destroy first appeared on the Amiga in 1993. Vision Software developed the game, while Mindscape handled publishing. An Amiga CD32 version followed in 1994. The basic idea was easy to understand. You controlled military vehicles from a top-down viewpoint and fought through missions spread across different environments. Desert, snow, jungle and water all appeared during the campaign.

Players could fly an Apache helicopter or drive a three-barrelled tank. Missions weren’t limited to simply destroying everything on screen either. Some involved specific targets, while others included rescue tasks and multi-stage objectives.

Before heading into combat, players could prepare their loadout by choosing weapons, ammunition and vehicle settings. There was also a basic upgrade system. Medals collected during the game could be spent on improvements, giving players another reason to think about how they approached later missions.

The Amiga version included 14 missions and supported the two-player helicopter setup mentioned earlier. For its time, the rotating top-down battlefield helped give Seek and Destroy a distinct feel. The game mixed straightforward arcade shooting with enough mission planning and vehicle management to keep things from becoming completely mindless.

The DOS version arrived three years later

Seek and Destroy reached DOS in 1996. Vision Software and Safari Software worked on the PC edition, with Epic MegaGames publishing it in the United States. CDV Software handled the European release. The DOS version kept the core helicopter and tank gameplay but adapted the presentation for PC hardware.

That’s the version openSEEK is currently focused on. Rather than trying to run the original DOS executable through emulation, the project rebuilds the systems that power the game. The missions and mechanics come from Seek and Destroy, but the engine itself is modern code.

That approach gives the developer more room to change how rendering, controls and multiplayer work without having to work around the limits of the original executable. OpenSEEK doesn’t have a public release date yet. The project is already far enough along for much of Seek and Destroy to be playable, but asset extraction and code cleanup still need to be finished before a wider release makes sense. For players who remember the DOS version, the end result should feel familiar. Underneath, though, almost everything is different.

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A new engine built from scratch

The graphics and controls are changing too

Seek and Destroy began on the Amiga

The DOS version arrived three years later

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