What is repack?

[oyildiz86]

Hi,

I saw some games on the site titled ''repack ISO''. For examle Hitman 5: Absolution added with repack ISO. So, what is this? Is it ripped something like ripped games (cutscene, movies, audio etc.)? Should i download those games like ISO?

[Fedmor El]

Same iso re-zipped, maybe with different size/parts. In crackers scene internal/hidden repack (irc/ ftp).

[Molitor]

Same iso re-zipped, maybe with different size/parts. In crackers scene internal/hidden repack (irc/ ftp).

This applies for scene releases when a release should be (un)nuked. In the context mentioned by OP, this means that the game files have been downsampled/recompressed - sort of a RIP, but without any content actually ripped. Also, despite being marked as ISO, these repacks are rarely CD/DVD images; yet we mark them as ISO because nothing has been ripped from them, thus the game is available almost as completely as in a full ISO.

[Meddle]

Repacks are generally highly compressed to ease bandwidth/storage space (maybe challenge too.. see how small you can get it to be). They are not merely re-zipped. It started happening when games began appearing on one or more DVD9's (consistently). Various individuals and/or groups in the so called P2P scene make them from Warez Scene ISO's (most of the time). Sometimes movies and cutscenes are re-encoded to make them smaller since those generally don't compress well.

Other REPACK's you might see from scene releases are because the initial group that won the race buggered something up and the initial release doesn't work or doesn't conform to scene rules.

[Scaryfun]

All of the above, yes. I've seen release of Steam version of Hitman Absolution at 23-26GB, so this repack saves more than half the download size. I added additional info in uploader's notes for that upload now. Will remember to do so in future.