Unlocking the Motorcycles in TDU2 on PS3

by Frost on 2023-12-28

So you've got Test Drive Unlimited 2. You've bought the bike DLCs from PSN. You've found a bike dealership, walked in, and... "This downloadable content is unavailable."

Uh, what?

I'm writing this to show you how to fix that.

Where This Works

Despite the name, this should work on other platforms too. And you can skip half the article! But if you're on PC you can just mod the game to not have this issue in the first place.

You need to actually own the DLC for this to work. From the video that helped us's description: "Please note that if you haven't Paid for DLC cars you won't be able to use them. The game will make you delete them from your save before loading the game."

By contrast, the "This downloadable content is unavailable." restriction that stops you from buying the bikes you paid for only stops you from buying them... it says nothing about owning them! That's where save editing comes in.

Things You'll Need

• Can you install homebrew on your PS3? If so, pick up Apollo Save Tool.
  • Some kind of FTP server on the PS3. If you've got Webman installed, you're set.
• If not, use the Bruteforce save tool instead. It seems to be a Windows program and may or may not be open source, so good luck.
• A hex editor. We're partial to Okteta (here's a magic Linux install link) but you can use anything.
• A USB stick to back up your savegame in case things really go sideways.
• A list of the cars' internal IDs (this article has you covered).

Getting Your Save

Get a car to replace

Buy a car. Or if you already have a car you don't want, you can use that.

Back up your save

TDU2 thankfully doesn't copy-protect its save files, so you should probably copy them to a USB stick, just in case.

Install Apollo Save Tool

Download apollo-ps3.pkg from https://github.com/bucanero/apollo-ps3/releases/latest, stick it in packages/ on your USB stick, and install it with "Install Package Files".

Get the unencrypted DATA file

Using Apollo

• Open Apollo, go to HDD saves. Find the first Test Drive Unlimited 2 save, hit "Decrypt save game files". If you see "DATA" and "OPTIONS", pick "DATA". Otherwise you're looking at the wrong save, pick another of the four and try again.
• Open your PS3 with FTP (your file manager can likely do FTP by itself, try "ftp://(the IP address of your PS3)".
• Go to dev_hdd0/tmp/apollo/BLUS30527_PLAYERSAVE/ and copy "DATA" to your computer.

Using Bruteforce

• Use the backed-up USB stick save (don't forget to copy that somewhere other than the USB, too, if you're going to modify the USB stick copy).

Editing It

• Make a copy of DATA (e.g. "DATA.orig" or something) in case you screw up or want to see what you've changed.
• Open DATA in a hex editor.
• Search for the hex ID (NOT decimal!) of the car you're going to swap out.
• Make note of where you find it, as long as it's not, like, obviously part of a word or something (in the "treat it as text" display your hex editor likely has on the right). In our save, it was near offset 0000 4DC0, so if it's super late in the file it's probably something else.
• Replace it with the hex ID of the motorcycle (or regular car) you want to put in. Again, not decimal!

Putting It Back

With Apollo

• Copy DATA back to the FTP-on-PS3 folder where you found it.
• In Apollo, hit "Import decrypted save files". Pick DATA, naturally.
• (optional) If you want to make sure your changes got added, you can use "Hex Edit save game files" and look at the offset you edited.
• Hit "Apply Changes & Resign".
• You're done! Try loading the game!

With Bruteforce

... We don't actually know how to use Bruteforce, sorry!

Troubleshooting

• If TDU2 blackscreens and you can't even open the PS menu (hitting the power button once should still triple beep and shut it down): You probably edited in a car that doesn't exist. Did you use decimal instead of hex? Use hex. Or maybe you typoed it.
• If nothing looks different at all: You probably modified the wrong place in the save file. Try a different place with your to-be-swapped car's ID.

See Also

This whole process is based on this video, just not in video format, and using an open source save tool, and with everything in one place.

The Big Car Codes List

From this forum post and this video (codes provided are in decimal).

Do NOT use the decimal numbers here! You will break things! They're mostly provided to compare with other people's tables.

Motorcycles:

Cars: