PS4: The mysteries surrounding the Horizon Zero Dawn 4.05 warez release
As we’ve mentioned a few weeks ago, PS4 game piracy is a possibility on hacked consoles running firmware 4.05. In practice, the games that can be run this way are limited to games that require firmware 4.05 or lower. This is for two reasons:
- A hacked PS4 is required to decrypt and dump games before releasing them to warez distribution channels. Since firmware 4.05 is the highest publicly exploitable firmware, this means the game needs to require firmware 4.05 or less in order to run and be dumped.
- Even if 1) was bypassed somehow (for example by someone running a private exploit on a higher firmware) games requiring firmware 4.06 or above to run, would not run on a hacked 4.05 PS4. In this scenario, we would see releases of 5.xx games on warez sites, but practically nobody would be able to run them.
We know that for point 2), it is theoretically possible to lower the firmware requirement of a given game, as long as the game does not actually require features from the higher firmware. This does not solve point 1), which is that in order to decrypt and run the game, one needs to run an exploit on a console with a firmware higher than 4.05.
Recently, a copy of Horizon Zero Dawn has been circulating on warez sites. The first release of the package file apparently originated from Russia (the first version of the pkg file only contained Russian audio for the game, although further releases have included English audio). And this warez release has been confirmed running on hacked PS4s 4.05, while Horizon Zero Dawn actually requires firmware 4.07.
- Related: How to get your hands on a 4.05 PS4
We’ve been asking around to confirm if maybe the Russian release of Horizon Zero Dawn has a lower firmware requirement (4.05) than other regions, but from the replies we’ve received so far this does not seem to be the case.
This means that an individual, or a group, somewhere, could have been using a private exploit on a higher firmware (we know some people have access to 5.xx exploits, see here and here), and in the process confirming the method shared by Barthen to reduce firmware requirements of some games.
This could be very exciting confirmation of Barthen’s theory, but there are still questions surrounding this release from my perspective. In particular, why has only this one “higher firmware” game been released so far, if the technical possibility now exists to release more?
flatz released russian version and qwerty released eng patch huheuhue
they released nothin – just someone modded FW in files like PARAM.SFO and EBOOT.BIN as we used to on PS3 for higher FW games 😉
Dos not work because keys are diffrent!!
well check comment below from FFTW that it was dumped on 4.05 so i bet he just edited FW in files from 4.07 to 4.05
Thank you, mr. Putin
The answer to this question is simple:
Someone found a way to spoof the fw version. Horizon could be dumped since sony used the 4.05 keys on 4.07.
Newer games are encrypted with different keys and thus cannot be dumped (yet).
Flatz shared his copy of Horizon and reduced firmware requirement
If anything else, a 4.55 kernel exploit might be on the way
Your not running the game the game to dump it though
So you can dump any game regardless of what firmware needs to play it and aslong as you don’t try running the game you can dump them
source? All the games I dumped required a tool that needs the game to be launched. Are you just making stuff up? smdh.
https://pastebin.com/3E6YAYRd – qwetyuiopz’s kernel exploit “write up”, works up to 4.70 FW
Most interesting indeed. If a hacker has a jailbroken higher firmware console running and he is willing to release hacked games that require higher firmware, why is he not just releasing the firmware itself? Why just one game, and not all of them?
Further more,reports from people on private russian forums talked with the guy who released the russian version. he wont say how he did it,but he did say that ALL the work was done on a 4.05 system. that means he managed to spoof the firmware of the PS4 its self.
Seems like I remember, back in the psp days, some games required a higher firmware but we’re signed with the old keys allowing us to bypass. I’m not 100% on that seeing as that has to be 9-10 years ago.
hey so ive been having an issue with my vita tv, as some of you may know the vita tv, through adrenaline, can play ps1 games coop, you just have to connect the controller. Well here is my issue, 2 player works fine but anything more than that i can connect the controller but it does not let you use it in the ps1 game, any ideas?
Haven’t we been getting games that require higher firmwares than required for the longest time? I mean, PS3 and PS4 games were leaked online before there was even a way to play them, so a game requiring non-exploitable firmware isn’t anything new.
I totally butchered that…sorry, bad couple days
I can confirm that russian version of Horizon indeed required 4.07. That’s the sole reason my console is 4.07. So someone in Russia has something interesting on their hands that allowed them to lower requirement.
Seems like some people have access to methods they don’t want to release. Again. That’s the PS4 scene alright.
Xbox 360 scene all over again….. Money talks….*** walkz
Possibly released as somebody’s “audition” for entry to some hacking group or another?
last 🙂
It would be nice for us to be able to convert our games that we bought that require 4.06 or higher for use on 4.05. The ideal solution, other that having an exploit for 5.00, would be to have a plugin that can properly spoof the firmware (it contains the 5.00 keys) and run those games without needing to download a fixed version from an unscrupulous website. My vision is to turn my hackable PS4 Pro into a steam machine. I already have an up to date PS4 Pro to play my games on.
Is there really any big difference between firmware 4.05 and 4.07 other than fixes for the exploit? Based on the firmware numbering I doubt there’s that much features added that H:ZD would really require.
Just waiting for a 5.xx public hack, then I can play any exclusives from this *** console made by an even shittier company.
“, why has only this one “higher firmware” game been released so far”
Because that’s the only valuable exclusive PS4 games on FW > 4.05
Where are all those suckers that did not wanted the PS4 to be hacked? hahahaha!
Can’t read the comments
is there still no chance for a cfw?
This is the VITA all over again. There IS a working hack that allows you to play pirated games, but they’re holding on to it until someone makes them a good offer OR a hero betrays them and releases the exploit to us peasants, which is what happened with Henkaku.
Xbox 360 scene, same ***
A o mnie nie pomyślałeś??
hello can we hope for a tool to verify pkg like we have on psvita ?
JEA ! I just buy today PS4 with 3.55 firmware ! ;> Horizn comming 4YA ! ;>
I can see only one single comment ???
good news guys 🙂
good news guys 🙂
https://github.com/LordYusei/PS4-4.70-WebKit-Exploit/blob/master/README.md