Azura

Unofficial native port of Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360) to macOS on Apple Silicon, Linux (x86-64) and Windows (x86-64).

It does not emulate the console at run time. The game's PowerPC code is translated ahead of time into C++ by the ReXGlue SDK and compiled into a normal native executable. ReXGlue also provides the runtime that stands in for the console's operating system and GPU; on macOS the GPU work goes through our own Metal backend, on Linux and Windows through Vulkan.

This repository contains no game data and no game code. You need your own copy of the game: the recompiled code is generated on your machine from your own default.xex and is never committed.

Download

The launcher for macOS (Apple Silicon), Linux (x86-64) and Windows (x86-64) is published in azura-releases. Point it at your own copy of the game (a folder or a disc image): it builds the game for your machine and keeps itself and the game up to date. The macOS launcher is not signed with an Apple Developer ID, so the first time it opens from System Settings, Privacy & Security.

On Windows the launcher comes as an installer (Azura-Launcher_<version>_x64-setup.exe) that installs it for your user and registers it in Windows' installed apps, where its uninstaller removes it. It is not signed, so SmartScreen warns the first time: More info, Run anyway. To build the game it needs LLVM's clang and Visual Studio's Build Tools (the C++ workload), which it installs with winget when they are missing; the game runs with Vulkan, as on Linux.

Layout

Path	What it holds
versions.toml	The game builds the project supports, identified by the SHA-256 of their default.xex. Shared by the launcher and the build script.
runtime/	The game runtime: one ReXGlue manifest per supported build (azura_<media ID>.toml), our C++ hooks (src/), default settings and controller mappings (config/), tests (tests/).
runtime/game/	Your own game files (default.xex and the data folders), for building from source. Ignored by git.
runtime/generated/	C++ produced by rexglue codegen from your default.xex. Ignored by git.
launcher/	The desktop launcher (Tauri): interface in launcher/src/, native side in launcher/src-tauri/. See its README.
patches/	Our changes to the ReXGlue SDK (the Metal backend, the Xenos shader compiler, the PowerPC interpreter and fixes) and to MoltenVK, applied by the build scripts.
scripts/	Build, player kit and release scripts; build-launcher-windows.sh builds the Windows launcher from Linux.
tools/	extract-xiso, to extract disc images.
(notes)	The design and research notes (backends, shader compiler, interpreter, the game's internals) are kept in a private repository, alboria-notes; references in the code read alboria-notes:azura/<file>.
sdk/	The ReXGlue SDK: its prebuilt release for your platform and its source tree, which the build patches. Ignored by git.
iniciar-linux.sh	Sets up and starts the launcher from a checkout on Linux.

Requirements

To play, you only need the launcher (see Download), on macOS 13.3 or later on Apple Silicon, on Linux x86-64 with glibc 2.35 or newer (as Ubuntu 22.04), or on Windows 10 or 11 x86-64 with a Vulkan graphics driver, and your own copy of the game.

To build from source:

• On macOS: Apple Silicon, Xcode Command Line Tools (Apple clang 18 or newer), CMake 3.25+ and Ninja (brew install cmake ninja).
• On Linux: clang, CMake 3.25+, Ninja, the Vulkan SDK and the development libraries the SDK builds against (the "Install the toolchain (Linux)" step of .github/workflows/runtime-kit.yml lists them for Ubuntu 22.04); iniciar-linux.sh sets up the launcher.
• On Windows: LLVM's clang (winget install LLVM.LLVM), Visual Studio 2022 or its Build Tools with the C++ workload, CMake 3.25+, Ninja, Python 3 and Git for Windows, whose Git Bash runs the scripts (scripts/build.sh uses the preset win-amd64-sdk-source). Clone this repository and the SDK with git config --global core.autocrlf false first: the SDK patches apply to files with their original line endings.
• To cross-build for Windows on Linux instead: a Linux build first (its rexglue runs codegen for the cross build), and for the game the CMake preset win-amd64-cross-sdk-source with clang, LLVM and Microsoft's CRT and SDK as cargo-xwin downloads them (~/.cache/cargo-xwin/xwin, or XWIN_DIR; see runtime/cmake/toolchain-win-amd64-cross.cmake); for the launcher Rust, Node.js, LLVM (clang-cl, llvm-lib, llvm-rc) and NSIS (sudo apt install nsis), with scripts/build-launcher-windows.sh setting up the rest (see the launcher's README).
• ReXGlue SDK 0.10.0: its prebuilt release for your platform, unpacked so that sdk/rexglue-0.10.0-<platform>/<platform>/bin/rexglue exists (from the v0.10.0 release), and its source tree: git clone --recursive --branch v0.10.0 https://github.com/rexglue/rexglue-sdk.git sdk/rexglue-0.10.0-src.
• Your own Gears of War 3 dump, with default.xex copied to runtime/game/default.xex. It must be one of the builds listed in versions.toml.

Supported builds

Edition	Media ID	Languages
World	58122AD6	English, French, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Czech, Hungarian
España	6EF14DF9	English, Spanish

Both editions run the same code (their executables differ only in the signed header), so one recompilation serves either.

A disc dump is an XGD3 image; extract-xiso extracts it (extract-xiso -s -d <destination> <image.iso>; options go before the image). To add another edition, see the comment at the end of versions.toml.

Build

scripts/build.sh

On Windows, scripts/build.sh runs in Git Bash as elsewhere. The game for Windows can also be cross-built on Linux after a Linux build, in runtime/:

cmake --preset win-amd64-cross-sdk-source
cmake --build --preset win-amd64-cross-sdk-source-relwithdebinfo

Then, on Windows, with the Visual C++ 2015-2022 redistributable installed: azura.exe --game_data_root=<game folder or .iso> --user_data_root=<saves> --cache_root=<cache>.

Status

The campaign runs on macOS (Metal), Linux and Windows (Vulkan), alone or with two players in split screen on one computer, and we keep playing it through to fix what turns up. Working today: controllers (Xbox, PlayStation and others, with their button prompts in the game), keyboard and mouse, local co-op (Options, Local co-op), achievements with their artwork, a save manager with backups, and video options (render resolution, upscaling, antialiasing, frame rate limit). The launcher builds the game from your own copy and keeps itself and the game up to date. Not yet: online co-op and multiplayer.

Credits

• ReXGlue SDK (BSD 3-Clause), derived from Xenia.
• Gears of War: Judgment for PC (BSD 3-Clause), used as a reference for the project structure.

Gears of War is a trademark of Microsoft. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft, Epic Games or The Coalition.

License

Azura's own code is source-available under the PolyForm Strict License 1.0.0: you may read it and use it for noncommercial purposes, but not change it or share it, in source or built form, without the copyright holders' permission. Copyright 2026 Carolina Molina Elvira and Juan Llorca Martínez. Our changes to the ReXGlue SDK and MoltenVK (patches/) stay under those projects' own licenses. The third-party code the project builds on, and the licenses that apply to it, are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. The license covers this project's code only: Gears of War, its code and its data belong to their owners and are not part of this repository.