You can now play FW 3.69 games on older firmwares without compatibility packs!

On New Year’s Eve, Team Molecule revealed the PSVita’s F00D key which effectively opened the doors to the remaining PS Vita security barriers. However, we didn’t fully know what the end-user could get out of their information and tools but now, that’s changed with the release of reF00D!

What is reF00D?

reF00D, by CelesteBlue, dots_tb and Princess of Sleeping [aka FAPS Team], is a kernel plugin that does away with FW requirements of games/apps. It allows you to run games requiring a higher FW than the one you’re currently running, such as FW 3.69 or 3.68 titles on 3.60/3.65, through realtime game decryption using keys.

Other than this, it also bypasses the F00D app blacklist thus allowing depreciated software that Sony decided to revoke, like PSM Dev Unity, to run on newer firmwares that it was never intended to be run on. Furthermore, it lets you run different versions of system applications on your Vita such as running the FW 3.69 web browser on FW 3.65/3.60.

Now, you’re probably thinking that reF00D is a complete alternative to the #LetMaiDie compatibility packs but that’s not fully accurate. Compatibility packs, generated by FAGDec, will apparently still be made since they provide quicker game start times and are decrypted thus allowing for easier modding. Staying on the subject, it’s important to state that reF00D also lets you create compatibility packs, which you could use with rePatch, by holding the L trigger when you open games. These will be stored in ux0:/rePatch

That being said, compatibility packs contain copyrighted content so reF00D brings the advantage of letting you play games that require a higher FW without having to obtain decrypted modules/binaries in a way that’s technically illegal.

Will this still work if Sony releases FW 3.70+? How do I get it?

According to CelesteBlue, the plugin will temporarily cease function with the latest titles (games requiring a firmware newer than 3.69) if Sony decides to change both the NPDRM and SPKG key.

That being said, this isn’t very likely to happen especially when we consider how long it took them to release FW 3.69 after H-Encore was released but even then, Sony didn’t change the aforementioned keys. However, if Sony decides to change the keys, all it would take would be to decrypt the PUP file of the FW update and grab the keys from it as doing such things is now possible thanks to the aforementioned information released by Team Molecule.

To install reF00D on your device, you have to do the following:

1) Download the plugin and the keys from here
2) Copy the SKPRX file you download to ux0:/tai or ur0:/tai depending on which directory your taiHEN plugins are in
3) Place the keys file you downloaded in ur0:/tai EVEN if the plugin is in ux0:/tai
4) Open your taiHEN configuration file and add the plugin under the *KERNEL heading
5) Enjoy running FW 3.69 games and revoked stuff on your PSVita!

Conclusion

For more information, memes and crazy Vita related stuff, make sure you follow CelesteBlue, dots_tb and Princess of Sleeping on Twitter by following the in-line links above. Other than doing that, you can also check out TheRadziu’s video showing reF00D in action found below!

Now, you can go enjoy the latest PSVita games like Chronus Arc without messing around with compatibility packs because believe it or not, games are still being released for the PSVita!