lmao

There is a lot to cover here but i'll try to be as informative as possible. Keep in mind that english is not my first language so i apologize if some parts are difficult to understand.

Basics:
1: what is this?
   - this is a quick guide to get you started on cracking games yourself
2: why?
  - because it's easy to do, certainly saves you the hassle of looking for a scene release that disappeared or never existed,
     because small-time devs and indie games get ignored, because i'm bored.
3: what do i need?
  -  some basic knowledge of computers
  -  patience
  -  will to experiment with tools and files generally shared by unknown people on the internet. if you're paranoid about
      getting a virus, stop here.


Terminology + websites:
DRM = digital rights management. refers to anti-piracy measures put by the devs or the platform the game gets published on.
GoG = Good old games. (will mostly come to mean gog-games here). A distributor and store (like steam for example) that
      doesn't include DRM in any of their games.
crack = file(s) required to bypass a game's DRM, can also be used as a verb to mean the act of bypassing DRM.
PCGW = PC Gaming Wiki, a wiki dedicated to pc games, including information about special DRM games use, what platform games
       are available on, helpful workarounds and fixes to problems, etc...



How to actually do it?
i'll explain 3 basic cases that you'll most likely face.

  1- Choose a game you want to crack.
  2- Look up your game's PCGW entry
  3: check what platforms your game is available on
  4a: i used Horizon Zero Dawn as an example here. if you see that your game is available on gog, you're in luck. head over
      to gog-games.com, find your game, and download it. after downloading it using whatever method you choose, install it,
      and play it. this is the best option and should always be your first, as it is the safest and gets you a 1-for-1 exact
      copy of your game as if you purchased it from gog.
  4b: i used final fantasy iv (2d remaster) as an example here. if you see that your game is not available on gog but on
      steam, head over to cs.rin.ru/forum. you need to create an account there to view download links. use the search bar to
      find your game. You'll want to find clean steam files for your game and download them (downloads are usually served in
      rar or zip archives, use winrar or 7zip. inside a subfolder within your download, you'll find the game files, extract
      those somewhere. if you try to run your game from its main .exe file, you'll most likely be greeted with steam
      redirecting you to the game's steam page, or with nothing if you don't have steam installed. head to
      https://mr_goldberg.gitlab.io/goldberg_emulator/ and click on "latest version" to download the steam emulator we'll use
      to trick the game into thinking it is running through steam. somewhere in your game files, you'll find a file called
      either "steam_api.dll" or "steam_api64.dll" depending on the game's bitness. you'll want to delete that .dll file and
      copy over the one from the steam emulator you just downloaded in the exact same location the original was in. try
      running your game again now, hopefully it'll work.
  4c: head over to https://github.com/atom0s/Steamless/releases and download the latest release. this nice tool allows us to
      bypass steamstub (basic steam DRM) by taking in the game's ,exe as input and outputting a new, DRM free .exe. it should
      be used in conjunction with the steam emulator we used last step. This was needed for all versions of chicken invaders
      available on steam, for example. the tool is simple to figure out on your own and there are plenty of video tutorials
      to help too.
  5:  (hopefully) profit!!

that's it. ofc this works only with basic DRM, any 3rd party DRM like Denuvo, VMprotect, and others (find on pcgw) cannot be bypassed using these simple methods. also be sure to use cs.rin.ru for updated links to all tools and game files, might even find some nice people who already did all this and shared their work. happy pirating.