If you haven’t yet familiarized yourself with modding Persona 5, check out this guide first!
ACB Editing
One of the easiest types of mods to start with is changing the BGM. In Persona 5 (PS3), the music can be found in ps3.cpk/sound, where there is a pair of ACB/AWB files named bgm.
To edit these, you’ll want a program called ACBEditor. You can unpack all of the ADX files contained within the AWB by dragging the ACB file onto the EXE.
If you’re modding Persona 5 on a console with custom firmware (rather than using the RPCS3 emulator), there are extra steps required to get patch.yml modifications working. This includes mod.cpk support, 60 FPS, intro skipping, file access logging, randomized music, hiding UI elements and more.
TGEnigma has created RPCS3PatchEboot, a program that can apply these patches to your game’s EBOOT.BIN file.
The EBOOT.BIN is different between regions, as well as between physical and digital releases of the game, so unless you have the European PSN version, you’ll have to patch your own EBOOT.
Following the instructions in the video, connect to FTP and get the EBOOT.BIN from the directory your game was installed in. Transfer it to your PC.
In order to decompress/decrypt and patch your game, you WILL need:
This guide is a continuation from “Guide 1: Setup & Installing Mods”. You will be unable to follow this guide if you have not already completed the steps in guide 1.
UPDATE 1/12/2021: This guide was originally written by Cryptoss, but has been updated by ShrineFox to prevent it from becoming obsolete.
Understanding the Mod Compendium
As mentioned in guide 1, the Mod Compendium is an application that has the capability to create/install mods for various Persona titles. The Mod Compendium builds a mod.cpk file in the Output Directory specified in the application’s configuration menu (in P5’s case, the mod.cpk file is built in \PS3_GAME\USRDIR).
This mod.cpk “replaces” (loads in place of, though not physically modifying) the game’s files according to the mods selected. If you didn’t use the Mod Compendium, you would be stuck creating a ps3.cpk dump, editing the game’s actual files, then re-packing the ps3.cpk. This process would become tedious and time-wasting, to say the least.
Now that the surface-level processes and purposes of the Mod Compendium have been explained, the rest of this guide will explain how to install and create mods.
Extracting Game Files Using CriPakGUI
CriPakGUI is a useful tool when creating a data.cpk & ps3.cpk dump. A CPK is essentially a package file that contains the majority of the game’s files. Creating a data.cpk & ps3.cpk dump is useful when you are creating a mod of your own.
To begin, open the CriPakGUI application. At the top left corner, left click “File”, then left click “Open CPK”.
Navigate to your Persona 5 game directory, then proceed to “\PS3_GAME\USRDIR“. Click on “data.cpk”, then click “Open”.
The application will now load the game’s files, and may appear as though it has frozen for a few seconds (do not worry, this is normal).
Click on the box that says “Extract me!”. Choose a folder that you will extract the data.cpk’s contents to (this can be any folder anywhere on your PC.)
Allow the extraction to complete (this may take some time). When it is finished, a folder named “data.cpk_unpacked” will be created in the folder you chose to extract data.cpk to, and a window will appear stating “Extraction Complete.”
Repeat the process for the “ps3.cpk“.
Creating a New Mod
This section will not show you how to create the contents of a mod. This section of the guide will instead show you how to structure your mod so that it can be used in the Mod Compendium, using a simple model replacement mod as an example.
UPDATE 1/12/2021: This guide was originally written by Cryptoss, but has been updated by ShrineFox to prevent it from becoming obsolete.
You can get the RPCS3 emulator from rpcs3.net. This guide is focused on how to install Persona 5 mods on PC.
See this guide for setup on a CFW PS3 console, or this guide for modding Persona 3/4 on PCSX2.
With RPCS3 installed, you also need to install any PS3 firmware via File > Install Firmware.
Then, also install Persona 5– sorry, we can’t help you locate that.
Installing a PKG isn’t enough, you also need a valid .RAP (license) file that goes in the RPCS3\dev_hdd0\home\00000001\exdata folder before you can boot the game.
Download the patch.yml file from shrinefox.com/PatchCreator.
Follow the instructions at the top of the page to get the proper PPU hash!
Continue reading “Persona 5 RPCS3: Setup & Installing Mods”
Mods