2011-05-04 14:26:47

Basic information about game files and how to open game files

About game files

The group called game files represents a very large family of various file types, that are used by various computer games for their purposes. Engines created by game developers for their games usually contain many file formats for their game resource files, including, audio formats, video formats, graphic formats, or formats for saved game positions.

Game archives, or resource files, contain game data (music, sounds, textures, models, maps, levels etc.) in one or more archive containers and often are compressed and sometimes even encrypted. Some utilities, such as Dragon Unpacker, can open and extract the contents of game resource files.

Saved games are a very specific game format. Saved game is digitally stored information that contains progress of player in particular computer game. Saved game can be loaded later and the player can continue with playing from his last saved position.

Many computer games can be modified by user's custom graphics, sounds, maps or new missions and map editors or mission creators are very often a standard part of the game installations.

You can check all Game file formats sorted by name in our Game file type category, that you can access from the main page on the left category bar.

How to open game files

Most game files are not meant to be directly opened by the users, and are usually not associated with the game itself in Windows. Game files usually come in two kinds: game resource files and saved games file.

Resource files

Resource files contain game data that are used by the game itself. Often the resource files are archives, containers, much like ZIPs, that contain other files. Some games offer the possibility of modding, ie. customizing and changing the original content of the game. Some specialized, usually fan made, applications can open, edit or extract the game resources and use them for mods.

Saved games files

Saved game positions, also known as saves are usually accessible from the game itself, where you can load the saved position and continue in the game. However, fans sometimes create a save game editor, that allows to edit the save game files and alter the saved position data, like experience points, levels, gold and such.

Simply check our database for the game file extension you are looking for and in the table below its description you will see a table with software, sorted by platform and actions, that is able to perform a specific action with the game files, such as open, edit etc..

Example of game software table of recommended applications, sorted by platforms and by actions they are able to perform.

You can also click on each software to open its own web entry on our website, that often contains additional useful information about it, such as developer, website, reviews or other useful articles.

How to open unknown game file

More information can also be found in our how to identify unknown file formats article.

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