CASC Viewer

CASC Viewer is a tool for browsing files and extracting data supporting all Blizzard games. CascView features browsing of local and online storages, searching files, extracting files, viewing BLP images and more. Note that CascView is not an editor - there is no support for modifying CASC storages and there are no plans for adding it. Due to the ever-changing nature of the storages, it would be extremely difficult and also a violation of Blizzard terms of use.

In 2014, Blizzard Entertainment changed data format in their games from MPQ to CASC (Content Addressable Storage Container). Every Blizzard game since 2019 has its own storage, which can be found in a subdirectory of the game (Data, SC2Data). Compared to the old MPQ archives, files in a CASC storage are not standalone; they are all needed to keep the storage in shape. It is no longer possible to copy a single file out and treat it as single archive. CASC storages are also closely tight up with the remote server, called Content Delivery Network - the CDN. Every time when a missing or corrupt file is detected, the game client (or game agent) automatically downloads the data from the server. The client also checks whether the server variant of the game data contains a new version.

Contents of CASC Storage

When browsing the data subdirectory in the game directory, you may notice several files in various subdirectories. There are data files in the "data" subdirectory. However, unlike MPQs, these data files are not standalone archives. The complete storage directory with several extra files is needed to be able to browse the storage and extract files from it. The following list contains the complete list of files and directories that you need to preserve in order to be able to extract files:

• The entire data subdirectory ("Data", "BNTData" or "HeroesData", whichever is present)
• Make sure that the "config" subdirectory under data folder is present
• The ".build.info" file
• The ".build.db" file (older storages)

Additional information can be found here.

To download, visit the Hive Workshop website. It can be found here.

CASC Viwer is also located on my Software Installs directory.

To install, create directory in your C:\Program Files (x86) directory called CascViewer.

Place the Win32\CascView.exe file in the newly created directory. Do not create a subdirectory in the CascView directory.

Create a shortcut to the CascView.exe file and place it on the Desktop for easy access.