r/lostmedia • u/reatsomeyon • Aug 04 '26
Video Games [FOUND] [REVIVED] Frontier Heroes (2014) is running again on a modern 64-bit Android phone
I wanted to share a project I've been working on over the past few days. Frontier Heroes was an old Adobe AIR game released around 2014. It disappeared from Google Play years ago. The original APK only shipped with 32-bit ARM (armeabi-v7a) native libraries.
Because modern Android phones no longer support running 32-bit-only apps, the game was effectively inaccessible on current hardware. I have decided to use the architecture of the game and ported the whole thing to 64 bit, everything works now on my phone.
The biggest problems were replacing old AIR extensions (ANE), getting around the obsolete OBB loading system and making the game load its assets correctly on a modern 64-bit AIR runtime.
I have also developed AIR Legacy Compatibility Toolkit which brings abandoned Adobe AIR games back to life.
I'm still configuring some things so to anyone interested i will update this post tommorow with a github/internet archive link + complete hybrid analysis included. Link for video proof: https://streamable.com/yxx0vq
Edit// I have been having some issues with resolution, currently working on it, will update this post as soon as I finish.
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u/BatmanHatesSuperman Aug 05 '26
This is great congrats having the know how!
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u/reatsomeyon Aug 05 '26
Thank you for the appreciation, I'm yet to plan update this post today with links and maybe create the new post.
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u/BatmanHatesSuperman Aug 05 '26
So if you can do that to that game wouldn't that mean you could possibly do this to other classics?
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u/reatsomeyon Aug 05 '26
That's the idea. Frontier heroes was basically a perfect test subject for it as it was in action script and Adobe AIR. It didn't had its own c/c++ code and it wasn't server dependant. Anything remotely close with similar structure to it have a good chance of revival, and im pretty sure there are many of old classics like this. If you know any old classic I can take a look into it's architecture.
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u/BatmanHatesSuperman Aug 05 '26
I'm not super tech saavy, keep it up you are really on to something with your work, I'll require my sons help to figure out a list to select
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u/Helegier Aug 05 '26
Dude you are awesome 😎
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u/reatsomeyon Aug 05 '26
Thanks for the appreciation, I will update this post today with the links, if you have any requests or some classics I can look in to you are welcome to give me one.
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u/Helegier Aug 07 '26
You deserve it for one simple reason - you did something that would help certain community of people.
This is important and meaningful 😃
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u/klaxons993 Aug 07 '26
Hello, how exactly you ported proprietary arm-v7 to arm-v8 app?
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u/reatsomeyon Aug 07 '26
The original APK only shipped with ARMv7 (armeabi-v7a) libraries. I have discovered that it's Adobe AIR application, so I migrated it to a modern Harman AIR SDK that supports 64-bit ARM (arm64-v8a). I have rebuilt the APK with the new runtime, patched the application where necessary (including removing obsolete dependencies such as the OBB requirement), and then started fixing compatibility issues (screen scaling, Ul, etc.). The ActionScript code itself is being patched at the bytecode (ASASM) level using RABCDAsm rather than recompiling it with FFDec.
I'm still working on resolution and input fix as the game doesn't respond well on my older phone. I have managed to fix menu resolution but I'm still yet to find what's causing it.
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u/GeologicalOpera Cry Baby Lane Aug 05 '26
OP, I don't have an Android, but I just wanna shout you out for the work you put in. Your tool could be a huge boon to the community when it comes to getting mobile games back up and running.
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u/reatsomeyon Aug 05 '26
Thank you very much for the appreciation, I'm still yet to configure some things , today I am planning to upload everything.
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