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Beginner Learning Materials on Reverse Engineering Video Games

Here is a compiled list based on personally recommended learning materials to help people with the process of learning how to reverse engineer video games. <br> I hope it will help others spend more time learning and less time searching.

Majority of the collected resources here will be focused on reversing PC games on the Microsoft Windows operating system with x86 assembly in mind over x64 as it is easier to learn.

Reversing engineering video games is more often than not related to "game hacking", they come and go together so don't be surprised if some of the learning materials come from such sites/sources.

Recommended order to learn

Learn how to search efficiently on Google, all your answers and resources are found on the internet
Learn using Cheat Engine
Learn about hexadecimal and binary numbering systems, and about computer memory in general
Learn x86 assembly
Learn C++
Learn using IDA/Ghidra
Learn basics of game programming
Learn fundamentals of the Win32 API
Learn the inner workings of Windows operating system, aka Windows internals
Practice, practice, practice...

Software needed for reversing

It's not recommended to run any of these tools (especially Cheat Engine) while playing multiplayer games that have anti-cheat systems in place, unless you know what you are doing.

For starters get familiar with Cheat Engine, and either IDA or Ghidra.

Memory scanners:
- Cheat Engine
Disassemblers / Decompilers / Debuggers:
Process Tools:
PE Tools:
Network Tools:
Other:

Picking the right tools

Before getting to work on a game you must know your target, so it's important to gather some information such as:

What software technologies it uses
What programming language and compiler it had been developed with
Does it have any anti-reversing or anti-tamper technology in place
Is it running on any popular third-party game engines (Unity, Unreal Engine, Source Engine, etc.)

Games sharing the same engines often have really similar and recurring codebase that you can use to your advantage. For third-party game engines such as Unreal Engine or Unity there are a lot of custom tools online that can ease the process of reverse engineering.

Games coded in high-level interpreted/intermediate programming languages such as C# or Java are generally much easier to reverse engineer as compared to C/C++, due to the metadata not being lost as they aren't compiled into low-level machine code.

For Unity-based games (and for any other games developed with the .Net Framework) use dnSpy instead of IDA/Ghidra.

We are mainly going to focus on reversing games coded in C++ as it is still the gold standard in video game programming.

Examples of games made with C++:
- Counter-Strike
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Fortnite
- World of Warcraft
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
- Fallout 4
- Borderlands
- Rocket League
- Destiny 2
- ARK: Survival Evolved
Examples of games made with C#:
- Genshin Impact
- Beat Saber
- Rust
- Hearthstone
- Subnautica
- RimWorld
- Hollow Knight
- Cuphead
- Getting Over It
- Risk of Rain 2

Must-read beginner level materials

Guides to game reversing:
- Game Hacking Academy
- From coding to hacking: An introduction guide to practical (external) game hacking
Guides to x86 assembly:
- What Is Assembly Language? - javidx9
- A Crash Course in x86 Assembly for Reverse Engineers - SensePost
Guides to IDA:
- IDA Pro Beginner Guide
Basic game programming concepts:
- Game Programming Algorithms and Techniques - Sanjay Madhav (This article has 7 pages in total, read up to page 5-6)
- Understanding the Game Main Loop - Rodrigo Monteiro
Books:
- Reversing and game hacking:
  - Game Hacking: Developing Autonomous Bots for Online Games - Nick Cano
  - Practical Malware Analysis: The Hands-On Guide to Dissecting Malicious Software - Michael Sikorski and Andrew Honig
- Game programming:
  - Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus, Second Edition (2002) - Andre Lamothe
  - Game Coding Complete, Fourth Edition (2012) - Mike McShaffry
Google:

Must-watch youtube channels

Other really useful materials

More x86 assembly learning material:
- x86 Assembly Language Applicable To Reverse Engineering: The Basics – Part 1
- X86 Assembly Language, Part 2
- Lena151 Assembly Tutorials (might be outdated, but it is still recommended a lot):
  - LearnThenTeach YouTube channel
  - Tuts 4 You - Collection 2011
Other useful tools and tool guides:
Practical reverse engineering and game hacking materials:
Bit flags and bit masks:
- Bit manipulation with bitwise operators and bit masks
Books and papers:
- Reversing and game hacking:
- Game programming:
  - Game Programming Algorithms and Techniques: A Platform-Agnostic Approach - Sanjay Madhav
  - Game Programming Patterns - Robert Nystrom
- Windows and Win32 API programming:
- Bypassing anti-debugging, anti-reversing, and anti-tamper techniques:
  - The Ultimate Anti-Reversing Reference - Peter Ferrie
  - The Art of Unpacking - Mark Vincent Yason
Curated lists of tools, tutorials, resources, and much more for reverse engineering video games:
Guided Hacking resources (As of 2023 it is now paywalled content):

Useful sites along the way

Google (seriously, use it, a lot, all the time)
Official Microsoft documentation (includes documentations on MSVC, DirectX, Win32 API, etc.)
Godbolt (Extremely useful to verify compiler generated C++ code)

Keywords you want to learn about in general

Memory scanning
Memory editing
Memory patching
Pattern scanning
x86 assembly
x64 assembly
Process debugging
Disassembling code
Decompiling code
Function hooking
API hooking
Detouring functions
Dll injection
Internal cheats
External cheats
Threads
Windows PE format
Win32 API
Windows internals
Anti-debugging
Anti-reversing
Anti-tamper
Software packers
Software unpacking