Isn’t There a Risk of Malware or Getting “Hacked”?

Asking this question means you don’t understand how malware finds its way to your system in the first place, what you must understand is that its YOUR responsibility to protect your systems form malware, and most if not all of the time YOU are the one that is letting it in, to keep it short, if you use an Ad-Blocker, and only download things from trusted websites, the malware risk is very minimal.

My Antivirus is Flagging Downloaded Files as Malicious?

Its perfectly normal and expected of the Antivirus software on your computer to do so, that is mostly due to the way the cracks work, as many cracks use code injection or unsigned executables, so if you know you got your files from a trusted source, its most likely a false positive.

What Games Can I Pirate?

DRM

Once a game is released, if its free of DRM (Digital Rights Management) software the game files can easily be copied and played on any other PC, so you can be sure that you can pirate those games on release.

It’s a bit harder when games contain DRM software, it can take a while for someone to crack the game depending on which DRM is used, and sometimes they don’t get cracked at all. For example, Steam’s DRM is very easy to crack while Denuvo is a DRM solution that’s notorious for being very difficult to bypass.

However, You can still acquire these games for free, or for very little money.

Online Features

When pirating online games, anti-cheat software will prevent you from playing on legitimate servers with people who paid for the game, but that doesn’t mean you cant play the game, pirates usually host their own servers, without said anti-cheat software, so your experience will not be optimal.

For games that use Steam’s online services, you can still play them using the Steamworks API exploit (also known as steam online fix), although most of the time you would only be able to play with other pirates.

How do I do it?

Setting Up

To ensure security and privacy, you will need an ad-blocker. And depending on anti-piracy laws in your region You might need a VPN.

Now you need trusted sources for your pirates games, maintaining a list is not easy so i would use the following resources:

Look for sites with easily accessible downloads links, (torrents are recommended) and if the game is newly released try to find the most recent version so you don’t have to bother with updating it after installation. Also make sure to avoid [untrusted sites and uploaders][fmhyunsafe].

Some sites provide game repacks. A game repack is a compressed version of a game that has been repackaged to reduce its file size to make it easier to download and consume less disk space. The only downside is that repacks can take longer to install, whereas other sites provide pre-installed games that usually just require a simple unpacking.

Downloading

When downloading, you might get the option to download the file directly with a direct download link (DDL), or torrent it using a magnet link and/or .torrent file. I would generally recommend torrenting because it’s very convenient.

Torrents let you download files by connecting to many other users who have the file. Instead of downloading from one server, you download small pieces from multiple peers at once. The more people sharing (seeding) the file, the faster and more reliable the download.

For torrents you will need a torrent client like qbittorrent or Deluge, either download the .torrent file and open it using the client or click or copy the magnet link to add it the client, once the download is finished it will be seeding by default, meaning other people downloading the torrent will download parts of it off of your computer.

With direct downloads (DDLs), the files are hosted on a remote server, usually using a file hosting website, the problem with DDLs is that most file hosters are annoying to deal with, they will try and get you to pay to bypass restrictions like limited download speeds or download sessions. If your download fails, you might have to retry it from the beginning. Files are also usually split into multiple parts, which means more clicking and more hassle.

However, there are still benefits to DDLs, mainly:

For DDLs, it’s highly recommended to use a download manager. It helps manage multiple downloads, resume failed downloads, and can sometimes make your downloads slightly faster. I recommend FDM, or JDownloader2. You can learn more about download managers here.

If your internet connection is slow, the bottleneck will be on your end and might slow down your entire network. You would have to limit your download speed in your torrent client and/or download manager to avoid this.

Installation

For pre-installed games, all you have to do is extract the .zip or .rar file using a file archiver like 7zip and you’ll find the game launcher inside usually with a .exe extension. If there are multiple parts, just extract the first part and it will automatically combine and extract the entire game.

For repacked games, there will usually be a setup.exe that installs the game for you like any other program.

If you can’t find setup.exe or the game won’t start due to missing .dll files, your antivirus has likely flagged and removed/quarantined them, you’ll have to tell your antivirus to keep the files, that will be different depending on which antivirus software you are using, but here are the steps if you’re on Windows 11 using Windows defender Go into virus and threat protection >> current threat >> protection history >> you will see the file as a detected threat in the list click actions then select allow on device.

If Windows defender still blocks you from installing you can try disabling it temporarily, to do that go into virus and threat protection >> manage settings and disable real time protection

You can also exclude a folder or drive from antivirus so you wont have to allow the files every time, to do that into virus and threat protection >> manage settings scroll all the way down to add or remove exclusions and then add a folder.

Steamworks API Exploit

The other way to play online is using the Steamworks API exploit, which takes advantage of Spacewar a placeholder game provided by Valve to test Steam’s online features to trick Steam into launching a pirated game with Spacewar as the online backend, this is mostly used for online co-op Games.

You can create the online fix files yourself by following the guides at CS.RIN.RU or download ready made ones on the internet, the best source in that case is online-fix.me. It does however require you sign up for an account to access the download links, and the site’s language is Russian, so you may need to translate the pages.

Denuvo DRM Offline Activations

For uncracked Denuvo games, you can generate activation tokens/tickets from legitimately owned Denuvo games and use the ticket to activate the game on a different computer, this works for Steam, Ubisoft and EA games.

Since this requires someone to own the game in the first place there are communities of people that provide Denuvo activations, the most popular ones are Anti-Denuvo Sanctuary and Pub’s Lounge, each have their own rules and terminology so take your time in reading the instructions and make sure to watch their video guides, once you download the clean game files, you can request an activation token, add the activation to your game folder and launch it.

With a legitimately owned game account you only generate 5 activation tokens per day, and each token has a time limit within which you can activate the game. Which is why these communities show a limited number of tokens that restock over time.

The limits with using this method are that the game will always be offline, and you will lose your activation is you update your computer (Windows) or change/update your kernel or your proton version (Linux).

Denuvo DRM Hypervisor Bypass

In early 2026, a method for bypassing Denuvo DRM emerged commonly known as the Hypervisor bypass, using this method requires disabling some core safety features in windows, if you read through the discussion and understand the risks you can use Hypervisor cracks in manner that doesn’t add any additional risk to you/your PC.

You can also run hypervisor cracked games through a virtual machine with GPU passthrough for an added layer of safety. However, GPU passthrough is not easy to set up and you’re better off dual booting.

GreenLuma, Steamtools and SLSsteam

GreenLuma is tool that patches the steam client, its usually used to trick the client it into showing non-owned games and DLC in your steam library, and bypass region and steam family restrictions. This tool is only recommended for advanced users.

Steamtools is a fancy program that burrows the same core functionality from GreenLuma and makes it easier and more accessible, it is however closed source and considered untrusted.

SLSsteam is a steam plugin for Linux that also provides the same functionality.

ACCELA is an open source game client for both windows and linux, it aims to make the process more seamless, by integrating a downloader and a DRM remover.

Linux

You’ll have the best experience pirating native Linux games, but most of the time you will be using a game launcher to run Windows games through a compatibility layer (Wine/Proton),

For Windows games The first thing you should do is check protondb to make sure the game actually runs on Linux, and whether or not it requires any launch options.

Steam

The easiest launcher to use would be Steam, to add a game to steam click on the Games Tab left side of the top bar then select Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library >> Browse >> use your file manager to find the game executable (.exe) >> Add Selected Programs.

Once you have the game in your library, go into the game Properties >> Compatibility and select a proton version.

Launch options are set by going into Properties >> General and typing them in the launch options text box, the launch option format is:

ENVVAR1="value1" ENVVAR2="value2" %command% -option1 -option2

You don’t need quotes for the value of environment variables unless you use special characters like spaces and semicolons.

If you need to access the system game files, for adding mods or game saves you need to find your proton prefix, its like the C: drive on windows but for your specific game, you can find it in:

~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/<App_ID>/pfx/drive_c

Since you’re adding the game to the steam launcher the App ID will be randomized, for games bought through steam you can find the App ID using steamdb

Heroic Games Launcher

Heroic games launcher is fairly easy to use and you can use it to play games from other stores such as GOG and the Epic Games Store.

To add a game to Heroic, simply click the add game button in the library, set your prefix, wine version and select the game executable then click finish, you can also select run installer first if you want to extract a repack, just make sure to change the default install location to somewhere in the C: drive.

To set launch options, click the settings button on the icon, and go into the advanced tab.

Special Launch options

For online-fix.me games you will need this environment variable:

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="OnlineFix64=n;SteamOverlay64=n;winmm=n,b;dnet=n;steam_api64=n;winhttp=n,b"

You’ll also need to launch the game with Steam, or use a launcher with umu launcher support (like Heroic). I would also recommend OFLL.

For Denuvo activated offline games, the launch options can be different for each game, if you are in a community they usually will provide them in their linux guides.

macOS

Just like Linux, you’ll have the best experience with macOS native games, and you’ll have to run Windows through a wine wrapper, the best one for macOS would be CrossOver, it is however paid software so you’ll have to either buy it, or pirate it.

Extras

Hydra

Hydra is a game launcher for both Windows and Linux, it integrates game discovery, cloud saves, downloading and launching all in one place, it makes the whole experience a lot more seamless, all you need to do is add your preffered download sources and you can search download and launch games in a few clicks.

Borrowing Games

If you set up Steam Family Sharing, you can share your library across 6 Steam accounts, However, you cannot launch one copy of a game on two accounts simultaneously using an unmodified steam client and not at all games will support it, but you can check by looking for the Family Sharing tag on the game’s Steam store page.

Tips