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🦜 Piracy

8 min read

Also check out 🏴‍☠️General Piracy for useful sites, tools, and more that may help you on your journey.

PC Games

🌟🌐 FMHY’s games section

(old reddit link) A huge curated mega list of piracy resources. If you can’t find something elsewhere, check here.

🌟 Fitgirl Repacks

Repacks for modern games. Repacks are compressed versions of games, I’ve rarely had problems with them though. As for other repackers, fitgirl endources RG Mechanics, RG Revenants, RG Catalyst, Xatab, El Amigos, Kapital Sin, and KaosKrew (rips). However I’ve never had to use them.

Free GOG PC Games

Free release for almost every game on GOG. GOG games are DRM free, so they literally just ship the installer GOG gives you when you purchase a game on there.

🌟 CS.RIN.ru/forum

Russian piracy forum with an English section. They have almost everything. If FitGirl hasn’t repacked it and its not on GOG, i check here. Unfortunately, requires an account to see any posts. As a tip, some games don’t warrant their own posts and are sometimes shared in megathreads, like most itch.io games.

🌟 JohnCena141 Search (Linux)

JohnCena141 is a prolific uploader for Linux games. Use this to search his uploads. They upload a ton of linux versions of games to 1337 and then seeds them. So if you dont want to go through Torrminatorr, check john :)

Torrminatorr Forum (Linux)

The only other place i know of that lists Linux games. Very similar to CS.RIN.ru. Unfortunately, also requires an account to see links.

CreamInstaller

DLC unlocker for legitimately owned games. Works online too! Tool based on CreamAPI and more. If the DLC is a separate download you’ll need to track that down and merge it. I use it for the PinballFX games, since all those have all their DLC packed into the game lol. Just know developers could easily track this and ban you if they went out of their way to. Steam probably could as well, though there’s no recorded cases of Valve taking any action against people that use this. Use CreamAPI or other tools directly if you’re on Linux.

Pirated Games Mega Thread

Lists resources curated by those at r/CrackWatch, as well as some anti-recommendations so you know what to watch out for. Anything on my list super-seeds anything there (at least for me) obviously.

Old Games Finder

Search engine to find copies of old PC games. Some sites it may lead you to are paid, but not all. Use Archive.org as another line of fire.

r/CrackWatch

Gaming piracy subreddit. Will tell you who cracked a game and removed it’s DRM if a game has been cracked. Should give you enough information on where to find said cracked game. Also carries with it other useful info. Be sure to read the beginners guide on the sidebar.

Internet Arcade

A bunch of retro games playable in browser on Internet Archive. If you dont want to go through the trouble of setting up an emulator and downloading roms and you just need an instant way to check out an old game for some reason, this should be your first stop. Surprisingly good support since it uses a javascript port of MAME. Here’s Libble-Rabble as an example because I love that game.

Flashpoint

GitHub A project meant to be an exhaustive preservation of flash games and animations.

  • Flash on Archive.org - Similarly to the Internet Arcade, Archive.org also supports playing flash games in browser using Ruffle, which Newgrounds also does for flash games that have remained on the site.
  • Bluemaxima (Myrient) - Flashpoint’s creator has a profile on Archive.org where they archive tons of material.

Console/Retro Games

🌟 Myrient

If you’re looking for a retro game you can start here. No-intro is for cartridge games, Redump is for discs. Myrient is just better Vimm’s Lair, ran by the same guys that run hShop (below). Has ROMs and ISOs :) - check curated romsets below for fan translations and more. - someone also created a browsing guide, if you’d find something like that useful. For the Ctrl+F friends: NES, SNES, N64, GB, GBC, GBA, DS, DSi, 3DS, Virtual Boy, VB, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Genesis, Master System, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, New 3DS, Arcade, MAME, FinalBurn Neo, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, PC-98, PSX, PS1, Playstation, PS2, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Wii, WiiU, PSP, Vita, Saturn, Dreamcast, 64DD, Gamecube, and more and more and more.

🌟 PropeR 1g1r Collection

The 2024 No-Intro romset, but only one ROM for each game. Further culled from the original 1g1r set. Removes the fluff. No bios, hacks, fixed, patched, cracked, non-game, or pirate roms. No unlicensed, releases, photos, demos, or betas, either.

No-Intro (romsets)

Almost every ROM, in one Archive.org database. Though I’d sooner recommend the PropeR 1g1r Collection if you’re looking to download complete sets for a given console, and Myrient if you only want to download individual games. No-Intro is a group that basically makes the standard database for making sure your roms are clean, but they dont provide the roms themselves, so this (and every) romset isn’t official.

The Unofficial Redump Hoard

Collection of Redump fullsets hosted on the Internet Archive. Redump is a very similar organization to No-Intro, just for discs instead of cartridges. If you’re looking to download individual games, i’d sooner recommend Myrient though.

🌟 hShop (3DS)

Homebrew software for real 3DS hardware that acts as a pirate eShop. A must install since the eShop is deprecated. Has all games that were on the eShop including updates and DLC. Ran by the Myrient team.

If you’re looking to download 3DS games for emulators, check myrient. Azahar requires decrypted files, btw. You may also have to rename .3ds files to .cci if you’re using Azahar (they’re the same). Alternatively, you could use Azahar’s built in Artic Base to stream the game’s data from real hardware, or ftp the files over after downloading them on real hardware via hShop.

Azahar compatible myrient folders include 3DS Decrypted and New 3DS Decrypted. 3DS Digital (CDN) is the only place you can get eShop exclusive games. You’ll have to do some tinkering to get them to work before myrient makes a (decrypted) folder. Use ntool to convert the game to a packaged format, then I use cia-unix (mac/linux only) to decrypt it. After, change the extension from .3ds to .cci if it isn’t already and you’re good to go.

Crocdb

Custom ROM/ISO search engine that uses myrient, archive, and others as source. Croc actually lists its sources publicly. So that’s neat. Unfortunately, it looks like sometimes they delist various games due to copyright hangups they’re not prepared for, such as all Pokemon games at the time of writing, despite them being part of the myrient and archive databases.

FMHY’s Nintendo ROMs (Switch)

Switch sites go up and down a lot and Switch games aren’t on Myrient, so check this page to see where to get Switch games from.

Software Clearance Bin

Huge collection of commercial abandonware. Not my first line of fire for seeking out a specific title, but SUPER fun to meander about and see some random shovelware game you played as a kid or always wanted to play and go “omg I’m gonna pop this in like right now”.

A list of ways you can legally acquire digital versions of plenty of retro games. Yeah its a fandom wiki but its still pretty neat. You probably own a few games that are incredibly trivial to pull roms of and may not even know it. A nice option to have. - Legal ROMs on Steam A guide for how to pull ROMs from various games on Steam.

Rom sites directory

Emulation Wiki’s directory on where to download roms, in case the above aren’t working out for you.

Curated Romsets

Tiny Best Set: GO!

Curated drag-n-drop romset that’s a good jumping off point. Originally created for the Miyoo Mini by EBZero. The base set is 32GB, but there’s expansions which bring the total to ~55GB and ~95GB respectively (and an unofficial “more PS1” expansion) - Tools: interactive game list, random game selector - Download: Myrient, Archive.org / arcade update

”Retro Roms Best Set”

includes all of TBS:GO! plus some additional systems. Also made by EBZero - Download: Myrient, Archive.org

English Translation Pre-Patches

English fan translations of various games, pre-patched and ready to go. - Download: Myrient, Archive.org

Others

  • HTGDB Packs
    • “Hardware Target Games DataBase Packs” intended for use on real hardware with Flashcarts and MiSTerFPGA.
  • Platform Explorer Pack Another 32GB starter pack. I haven’t heard much of it, but TBS:GO! shouts it out
  • FBNEO Fullset A fullset for Final Burn Neo (Arcade, MAME) - Download: Non-Merged, Myrient
  • My page on Doom has everything you could ever need for Doom piracy!

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