PAK (Tropical Freeze)

See PAK (File Format) for the other revisions of this format.

The PAK format in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is the third version of the .pak format, with another layout overhaul, file IDs being extended from 64 bits to 128 bits (as they now use a new GUID system that is used to associate IDs with various objects across the entire game), and the addition of an extra metadata section.

Format
The Tropical Freeze pak format contains three main header sections: the resource directory, metadata, and name tags.

Asset Directory
The asset directory contains a list of every asset in the pak, associating a GUID with an offset/size in the file. Assets are sorted by their GUID in numerical order, which is often not the same order that they actually appear in the file.

Metadata
The metadata section lists extra metadata for some asset types, which are associated with them via their file ID. The structure and contents of a  entry varies depending on the asset type; check that type's page on the Wiki to check the structure of its   entries.

Note that a lot of formats don't have any extra metadata. If there's no assets with extra metadata in the entire pak, then the  section won't appear in the file at all.

Name Tags
The name tags section associates certain assets with string names. These are the "main" assets of the pak; any asset that does not have a name is a dependency of one of the ones that do.

Tools

 * PakTool by Parax; can extract and decompress files from Tropical Freeze paks, but doesn't support repacking or recompressing them