Playing Origin games without Origin

So, if you’re like me, you hate having to wait for Origin to do its weird cloud syncing every time I want to play Battlefield, or maybe you’re tired of it not launching your game due to some weird error.
Perhaps you simply don’t want to have the memory overhead of Origin running, or maybe you simply hate Origin for whatever reason.

Well, recently I was looking around Origin’s DRM (which is what forces games to require Origin to be running) and I came across some nice findings.

Apparently, every recent Origin game that uses the new DRM system (awc.dll or Activation.dll) has a file in the same folder as its binary named <MAIN_EXECUTABLE_NAME>.par.

Obviously, that .par file is encoded and not humanly readable, so I took a closer look and figured out that that file contained several game information, as well as parameters to let know the DRM if the game requires Origin to be running (therefore .par).

So after a lot of peeking and messing around, I present to you my new website.

If you want to play games without origin simply visit my website, upload your .par file and you’ll get a brand new one with Origin disabled.

Simply place it in your game folder, replacing the old one,  and launch your game as you normally would (via Battlelog, by double-clicking the exe, etc.).

Please note that this will make games that require communication with the Origin process (such as SimCity, FIFA 12, etc.) unplayable.

Note: This is in no way a ‘trick’ to play games for free. In order for this to work you need to have a valid license downloaded to your computer for that specific game.




18 Comments

  1. tommy says:

    Can this get my account banned if I use it on BF3?

  2. NoFaTe says:

    @tommy
    No, this won’t get your account banned.

  3. tommy says:

    That’s nice! Thanks for the fast reply, and good luck with the Venice project, I’m looking forward to it like crazy haha
    (like we all are)

  4. CossRooper says:

    WOW, works flawlessly. Just used it for 1942.

    THANK YOU so much!

  5. Chris says:

    Great job, I have a question that might be out of scope to your expertise but here goes: Do you know of a way to enable the Steam Overlay with BF3 as every other hacky solution out there /requires/ Origin to some extent..

    Thanks!

  6. Anonymous says:

    Thank you for the service NoFate, but i was wondering can you share a bit more details on how the awc/activation system works and what parameters can we find in this files?

  7. kromio says:

    can i play medal of honor 2010 or warfigther with this trick?

  8. […] because I’ve never played Battlefield 3 and have therefore never felt the need to seek out the kind of modifications that allow legitimately paid for versions of the game to run independently of […]

  9. cyK says:

    Ehy NoFate! Thanks for this awesome tool!
    The only negative thing I got to say is that with “modded” .par file you can’t gather through ESL Wire, so it’s impossible to play on that platform :(

    Anyways, GG!!!!

  10. Robert Snead says:

    FYI
    This trick does not work on any of the CNC collection series!

  11. i hope venince is released SOON..:) i can’t wait for modding.. :v and free multiplayer

  12. Mein says:

    Thanks !
    Before using your tool BF1942 would not run on my system.

  13. adonis29 says:

    GREAT JOB NoFaTe …can whait

  14. Brock says:

    AWESOME! Works perfectly for Crysis 2

  15. Johndill says:

    What if the game needs an update?

  16. Johndill says:

    Ok, awesome work!! :-)

  17. Johndill says:

    What are the parameters in bf3.par? for curiosity sake

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February 6, 2013 EA, Reverse Engineering