It is critical to state: Highly compressed games from ATH are almost always unauthorized copies of copyrighted software. While compression technology is legal, distributing cracked commercial games is not. This article is for educational purposes regarding compression techniques and data archiving.
If you want the benefits of compression legally, consider:
ATH (often standing for "Attempt to Hack" or simply a tag) is a prominent name in the game repacking scene. Unlike Steam or Epic, ATH doesn't sell games. They take existing PC games—often heavy, unoptimized installers—and compress them using bleeding-edge algorithms. highly compressed games from ath
Their goal is radical: Reduce file size by 60-90%.
For example:
As of 2025, the original ATH group has become more decentralized. The tag "ATH" is now used by multiple repackers honoring the original methodology. With games pushing toward 200GB+ (e.g., Starfield, Ark: Survival Ascended), the demand for highly compressed games is higher than ever.
New technologies like NVIDIA’s RTX IO and DirectStorage threaten traditional repacks—since these rely on raw, uncompressed asset streaming. However, ATH-style repacks still dominate for archive storage. You download the ATH repack, keep the .bin files on an external HDD, and decompress only when you want to play. It is critical to state: Highly compressed games
Over the years, ATH has released hundreds of repacks. Below is a curated list of the most popular high-compression successes:
| Game Title | Original Size | ATH Compressed Size | Compression Ratio | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Red Dead Redemption 2 | 119 GB | 27 GB | 77% reduction | | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 175 GB | 35 GB | 80% reduction | | Cyberpunk 2077 | 68 GB | 18 GB | 73% reduction | | Final Fantasy VII Remake | 95 GB | 24 GB | 75% reduction | | Forza Horizon 5 | 110 GB | 28 GB | 74% reduction | | God of War (2018) | 70 GB | 15 GB | 78% reduction | If you want the benefits of compression legally,
Beyond these giants, ATH is famous for its "Micro-Packs" — collections of retro games (PS1, PS2, PSP emulators with ROMs) compressed into 200MB–500MB archives.
We do not link to pirated content. However, for researchers and archivists, the most reliable places to verify ATH repacks are: