Far Cry 2: Let’s change the weapons in the hud popups!
The guide will cover changing which weapons are shown by the popups that appear during the tutorial, convoy reward screens and weapon shop computer adverts. I have a google docs version of this guide available here.
A hex editor is required for this method. I use 101 Editor but for a free option I recommend HxD which is available here .
You will also need to have unpacked your common.fat and common.dat files which can be found within your Far Cry 2 folder (\Far Cry 2\Data_Win32\). This unpacking can be done with the Far Cry 2 modding tools available here. I have covered unpacking the files in more detail in my tweak guide available here, ask in the comments if you need further help.
With that, let’s begin!
Once you have unpacked your common.fat and common.dat files you need to retrieve some files. To edit the tutorial and convoy reward popup weapons you will need the “hug.mgb”. To edit the weapon shop computer advert weapons you will need the “weapon_bazaar.mgb” file. The location of these files varies depending on your game language and aspect ratio. The location addresses are similar and pretty self-explanatory but for the English widescreen files they can be found here: \common_unpack\ui\localized\pcwidescreen\eng\ui\.
Before opening these files I’ll go over the relevant hex excerpts. Each weapon image file has a hex address and these are linked to the ui weapon files which are also found in your extracted common folder (\common_unpack\ui\textures\hud\icons_weapons\). These hex strings are listed below, in brackets I have included extra values that are only needed when editing the convoy reward popups. I wasn’t able to find the bracketed values for every weapon image so you won’t be able to use all of these for the convoy missions.
Makarov - 72 A5 F8 24 (1F)
Silenced Makarov - 44 C2 75 53 (1B)
Star .45 - 5E 97 08 17 (1E)
Desert Eagle - BC 19 47 CE (1A)
Mac 10 - 71 95 5D 26 (1D)
Uzi - 8B 2E 0E B3 (1B)
MP5 - B3 CB 99 C7 (1B)
Ithaca - BE 5F 29 D6
Spas 12 - 8F DF A1 99 (1E)
USAS 12 - 76 E7 24 AB (1E)
Silenced Shotgun - CC 5E 7E 2D
Sawed-off Shotgun - 46 76 30 4F
G3KA4 - 4A CF 24 D2
AK47 - 30 10 68 48 (1C)
FAL - B7 0C 32 74
M16 - 82 02 88 E7
M1903 - 4A 7E A8 CD
Dragunov - 19 63 FC B5 (20)
AS50 - 1A 46 22 DD (1C)
Dart Rifle - 45 48 B7 D2 (21)
PKM - 69 0B 71 E1 (1B)
M249 SAW - 50 D1 26 BE (1C)
M79 - 75 FE 20 19 (1B)
MGL 140 - 0F BF A3 2C (1D)
RPG - E5 8E A5 1E (1C)
Carl G - A3 8E 25 0C (22)
Crossbow - EF 1C B9 5B
Mortar - 07 4E 49 C9 (1E)
Flamethrower - 81 76 50 C7 (1D)
M67 - D3 A4 CE DF
Molotov - 93 13 80 48
Machete - 88 9E 61 5D
Editing weapons shown in the tutorial
This requires having “hud.mgb” open in your hex editor.
In the tutorial each weapon type (primary, secondary, special, machete) has its own section with a few example weapons. Similarly, within “hud.mgb” each type has its own section with it’s own title. To edit the tutorial weapons you must only change the values directly under these titles. This is relevant because when you ctrl-f these values each weapon can show up multiple times. These are the titles and their hex codes:
Machete
T.U.T.O.R.I.A.L._.W.E.A.P.O.N._.M.A.C.H.E.T.E
54 00 55 00 54 00 4F 00 52 00 49 00 41 00 4C 00
5F 00 57 00 45 00 41 00 50 00 4F 00 4E 00 5F 00
4D 00 41 00 43 00 48 00 45 00 54 00 45
Primary weapons
TU.T.O.R.I.A.L._.W.E.A.P.O.N._.P.R.I.M.A.R.Y._.3
54 00 55 00 54 00 4F 00 52 00 49 00 41 00 4C 00
5F 00 57 00 45 00 41 00 50 00 4F 00 4E 00 5F 00
50 00 52 00 49 00 4D 00 41 00 52 00 59 00 5F 00
33
Secondary weapons
T.U.T.O.R.I.A.L._.W.E.A.P.O.N._.S.E.C.O.N.D.A.R.Y._.3
54 00 55 00 54 00 4F 00 52 00 49 00 41 00 4C 00
5F 00 57 00 45 00 41 00 50 00 4F 00 4E 00 5F 00
53 00 45 00 43 00 4F 00 4E 00 44 00 41 00 52 00
59 00 5F 00 33
Special weapons
T.U.T.O.R.I.A.L._.W.E.A.P.O.N._.S.P.E.C.I.A.L._.4
54 00 55 00 54 00 4F 00 52 00 49 00 41 00 4C 00
5F 00 57 00 45 00 41 00 50 00 4F 00 4E 00 5F 00
53 00 50 00 45 00 43 00 49 00 41 00 4C 00 5F 00
34
Within these sections you can ctrl-f the weapons you want to swap and replace their hex strings with the ones i have listed above. For reference the default tutorial screen looks like this:
Editing the weapons shown in the convoy reward popups
This requires having “hud.mgb” open in your hex editor.
There are 8 total reward screens for the different convoys but unfortunately they aren’t numbered within this file. To navigate each convoy entry they each have a reference to “TU70A message” (54 00 55 00 37 00 30 00 41) and the weapons for each convoy are listed below this. It is possible to navigate between each weapon by searching for “W.E.A.P.O.N.B.A.Z.A.A.R” (57 00 45 00 41 00 50 00 4F 00 4E 00 42 00 41 00 5A 00 41 00 41 00 52) but as you will see it will be useful to be able to navigate each convoy also.
The structure for each convoy is the same throughout. There is a lot of other hex between the listed sections but this is the order they appear as you scroll down the file:
1) T.U.7.0.A._.M.E.S.S.A.G.E
2) Hex strings for the relevant weapon images
3) Sections for each weapon rewarded by the convoy mission
To edit the images there are three things to edit:
1) The hex string for the relevant weapon image. These are listed above for every weapon.
2) Each weapon section has a title that looks like this: W.E.A.P.O.N.B.A.Z.A.A.R._.U.Z.I._.C.R.A.T.E
This title needs to be changed to the new weapon. The titles can be found in the weapon shop section of "gamemodesconfig.xml" if you have unpacked your patch.dat and patch.fat files.
3) Directly before the title for each weapon there is a value that needs to be changed. This is always four hex values before the title. I have listed these above in brackets for each weapon for those I could find it for.
Once all three of these have been changed for the new weapon the image will be updated in game.
For reference these are the convoy rewards, credit to Far Cry 2 Fandom:
Editing the weapons shown in weapon shop computer adverts
This requires having “weapon_bazaar.mgb” open in your hex editor.
This is a very simple swap. I don’t have images of each of these ‘adverts’ but as far as I’m aware each weapon is only featured in one of them. This means that you can simply swap them out for the hex strings listed above.
And that’s it! Let me know if this worked for you or if you need further help in the comments.
A great resource! Thanks for sharing.