Microsoft pledges Allegiance to its fanbase

Microsoft has released the full source code to its hybrid real-time strategy/space combat game, Allegiance. The game was originally released in 2000 for the PC. Despite critical acclaim, it failed to make much of an impact in the commercial market, selling fewer than 29,000 copies in its first year. Allegiance actually won the dubious honor of Best PC Game No One Played in 2000 from GameSpot.

The release of the source code came in response to the enthusiasm of Allegiance's small-but-dedicated fanbase. Microsoft's Joel Dehlin commented that the development team has, "been amazed at the level to which some of the Allegiance fans have remained hard-core. We’re astounded at the progress that has been made at creating new factions, hosting new servers, replacing authentication, etc. It seems that Allegiance hasn’t really died. With that in mind, we’re releasing the Allegiance source code to the community."

Interested programmers can download the unsupported source code (511MB) from the Microsoft Research Web site. GameSpot's DLX will have the code for download as soon as it becomes available.