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Sources

Community-reported

See Getting Started for the full provenance note.

A catalog of where the community keeps its actual technical knowledge — forums, tools, and file-format research — as distinct from Mods Survey, which lists individual mods.

Forums & discussion sites​

  • OpenWorldGames (OWG) — "Single player modding" board — the richest technical source for FC2 modding, ~81 threads (2011–2017, still occasionally active). Gibbed himself posted his tool announcement and workflow directly here (topic 2390), and the forum has hosted his tools ever since. wobatt (author of an improved XML/hash decoder) is also a regular poster. The technical distillation of this forum is Getting Started and its sibling pages.
  • guru3D — "Far Cry 2 Mod info and help thread" — short (8 posts, 2014), mostly a funnel into OWG, plus one user's working example patch. Real new content folded into Getting Started/Data Recipes: the full per-biome FOV field structure, the full detection-duration field list, and the gamemodesconfig.xml-in-two-archives report now folded into Gotchas.
  • guru3D — general FC2 release thread — general release discussion (reviews, DRM gripes, DX9/DX10 comparisons), not modding-technical. One useful fact: patch 1.3 removes the SecuROM DRM.
  • Far Cry Wiki (Fandom) — has dedicated Map Editor and FCBConverter pages, cross-reference material.
  • "An Almost Complete Guide to Far Cry 2 Modding" (Boggalog) — the community's closest thing to an SDK/reference manual, covering packing/unpacking, XML editing/decoding, hex editing, texture conversion, and .fat/.dat handling. Saved locally in full; treat it as a standing reference to search directly for specific questions rather than something summarized here.

File-format reverse-engineering references​

Dedicated modding sites​

  • fcmodding.com — primarily an FC3–FC6 hub, not FC2-focused, but its FCBConverter documentation page is a useful secondary confirmation of FAT versioning and the complete XML field-type system (Int/UInt/ Float/Vector/String/Enum/Hash/Id/Boolean/BinHex) used for hand-editing converted values — see Getting Started.
  • fc2mp.com — community site reviving/maintaining FC2 online multiplayer. Its Downloads page hosts real map-editor mods (see Mods Survey) and links ModDB's "Far Cry 2 Map Editor Run Through" tutorial — the canonical beginner guide, distilled into Engine Theory's Map Editor section.
  • GameBanana — Far Cry 2 Hub — mods, tutorials, Q&A. Its tutorials contributed the exact FC2Editor.exe launch paths and the Documents\My Games\FarCry2\usermaps\ install path (folded into Engine Theory).

Tools​

  • Gibbed.Dunia — the canonical open-source toolset for Dunia-engine games, written in C#. Contributors include Gibbed himself and Janne252 (also the author of "Janne252's editor mod" on fc2mp.com). The base that SCHTEVE, the trainer, and most community tools wrap.
  • FCBConverter — unpacks/packs .dat/.fat and converts the FCB binary format to/from editable form; built mainly for FC5/New Dawn but usable for older games. Author: ArmanIII.
  • FarCry2-Schteve ("SCHTEVE") — wraps Gibbed.Dunia (unmodified) + xbt2dds (lightly modified) + a "FC2 XML Decoder" behind a PowerShell TUI, with a config-driven "Sandbox" working directory model. Author: Steve64b.
  • FarCry2_trainer — WPF app for tweaking/modding FC2, built on Gibbed's binaries. Feature set (unlock all weapons/equipment, manuals cost 1, remove malaria, unlimited sprint, golden AK-47 respawn, max slope climb cap, weapon slot reassignment, silencing a weapon, removing accuracy spread) is consistent with the recipes in Data Recipes.
  • Queiroz-Far-Cry-2-Modding-Tool — Python-based XML-modding facilitation tool, tested on Windows by hoklifter.
  • Far-Cry-2-Multi-Fixer — launches FC2 with various fixes without modifying game files; non-invasive alternative to FC2MPPatcher. Also fixes a framerate-cap bug that causes NPCs to visibly bounce.
  • FC2MPPatcher — community multiplayer-revival patcher; the actual online service is a fan-run replacement backend at longweep.net. Fixes network-interface binding, LAN/VPN broadcast, and dedicated-server IP-announcement bugs.
  • farcry2_sdk — a C#/.NET wrapper and SDK for interfacing with the FC2 game and editor on Windows, directly addressing the "no official SDK" gap.
  • Dunia-Engine-XBG-Blender-Importer — the current, actively-developed answer to custom 3D model import/export for FC2, described in full on the .xbm/.xbg format page: real (if pre-alpha/buggy) mesh import and export/injection, built for Avatar: The Game but working for FC2 given the shared engine lineage. Author: Quiet_Joker.
  • wobatt's "Far Cry 2 XML File Decoder" (hosted on OWG) — sits on top of Gibbed's tools and resolves far more hash-only names than the original; see the comparison table in Getting Started.
  • Archived FC2 Editor source code — decompiled C# source for the actual stock map editor (AssemblyCopyright("Copyright (C) 2008 Ubisoft Entertainment")), preserved locally at tools/third-party/FC2Editor_Source/. See Getting Started and the editor API surface page, built directly from this source.
  • SkeleTree (fdx4061) — cross-game skeleton reading tool, confirmed working on Avatar (2009), Far Cry 2, and Far Cry 3. Preserved locally at research/reference-files/tool-archives/SkeleTree.zip.
  • EXTRACTOR.exe (fdx4061) — automatically extracts textures/materials referenced by .xbg files into organized subfolders. See Getting Started for usage.
  • XBT-Thumbnail-Provider (fdx4061 + JasperZebra) — a Windows Explorer shell extension showing real .xbt texture thumbnails in Explorer's icon views.
  • dunia_map_visualiser (Gabor) — renders FC2/Avatar world-sector heightmap data into a visual/3D map matching the real in-game layout; used to confirm the sector-grid numbering in Getting Started.
  • FARCRY_2_Diamond_Editor — a savegame diamond-count editor (see Gotchas's diamond-count-instability note before using it to front-load a large amount).

Discord servers​

  • "Far Cry Modding Community" — general Far Cry series modding server, ~17,400 members, covers tutorials/tools across the whole series. Its ⭐ Far Cry 2 / 🔨-fc2-modding channel is the single richest source in this whole project — FCBConverter's author, SCHTEVE's author, Redux's author, and the author of the tool that finally solved custom mesh import all post directly and in dialogue with each other there.
  • "Far Cry 2 Multiplayer" (fc2mp.com's Discord) — 4 channels: other-fc2-stuff, tools-and-mods, modding, map-editor.

Key community figures​

  • gibbed ("Rick") — original tool author, posted directly on OWG in 2011, personally clarified several format questions.
  • wobatt — built the improved XML/hash decoder and a modified Gibbed toolset; documented the DLC entity-editing recipe.
  • stoatoats — author of "RealMod" (ModDB); demonstrated direct hex-editing of DLC's entitylibrary.fcb.
  • Art Blade, PZ — OWG admins, did much of the early (2011) file-format spelunking.
  • TheStranger, nexor, OWGKID, Knightmare (found the magazine-capacity hash map and the ballistic spread-angle conversion formula), TheFishlord (author of the Realistic Weapons Pack mods and the 42_weapons.xml-crash workaround), shelmez (weapon texture reskins), Diablo_Lobo (camo/detection tuning), hans_dampf36 (Lua/checkpoint investigation, later a developer on "Infamous Fusion"), Rhynder (original full-auto AR-16 fix, early enemy-respawn Lua investigation), Vaatho (faction infighting, vehicle HP attempts), LinkHero (ammo pickup hash table, dart rifle fire-mode fix), chiconspiracy (hit-location/accuracy breakthrough) — recurring OWG technical contributors, 2011–2017.

Currently active (2025–2026, "Far Cry 2 Multiplayer" Discord):

  • Gabor — the server's most technically deep active contributor. Owns/maintains a from-scratch .xbm↔XML and .xbg↔XML converter, a Dunia world-sector map visualiser, and cross-references extensively against Avatar: The Game. Also does active .spk sound-format modding.
  • fdx4061 — builds complementary tooling: a cross-game skeleton-file reader, an XBM editor, and the XBG texture/material extractor. Worked on cracking the character-XBG bone-palette mystery documented on the .xbm/.xbg format page.
  • JasperZebra — author of FARCRY_2_Diamond_Editor, Borderless_Window_Maker, AVATAR-The-Game-Level-Editor, and XBT-Thumbnail-Provider.

Currently active (2021–2026, "Far Cry Modding Community" Discord, 🔨-fc2-modding channel):

  • Hunter — the most prolific and knowledgeable contributor in this channel, and the actual author of "FC_Redux." Deep practical knowledge across weapon modding, buddy/character model swapping, Dunia.dll binary patching (the weapon-icon fix, see Data Recipes), and general troubleshooting since 2021. First-hand source for the "buddies are a scripted facade" explanation.
  • ArmanIII — author of FCBConverter; personally debugged and fixed live FC2-specific bugs in his own tool in this channel (see Getting Started). Also shipped a Far Cry 2 Mod Installer.
  • Steve64b — author of SCHTEVE; ArmanIII's regular collaborator/tester.
  • Boggalog — author of "An Almost Complete Guide to Far Cry 2 Modding" and of a substantial overhaul mod; deep knowledge of the weapon-icon/sName system and holster mechanics.
  • scubrah, Lasercar, RaZoR-FIN — scubrah built the outpost-respawn-timer POC and helped root-cause the GOG/DVD entitylibrary gap; Lasercar surfaced the archived FC2Editor source code and drove filelist-completion work, and does ongoing Blender/mesh investigation; RaZoR-FIN does coop/multiplayer experimentation and archetype-override research.
  • Quiet_Joker — author of Dunia-Engine-XBG-Blender-Importer, the tool that resolved the character-mesh/bone-palette mystery in mid-2026.
  • thatdarnowl, MysteryPL, sharp_razor8 — active 2026 testers/collaborators on Quiet_Joker's importer, surfacing concrete bugs in real time.
  • bajuh — independently reverse-engineering Dunia.dll with Ghidra, cross-referencing the Linux FC2 dedicated server binary (see the engine overview), aiming to build an FCB-editing tool.
  • Ganic — active FC2→FC3 asset porter, hit the same .xbm/.xbg material/bone-weighting wall documented on the .xbm/.xbg format page, from the opposite side.

Locally preserved reference files​

See Getting Started § Locally preserved reference files for the full breakdown of research/reference-files/.