[File] [PATCH] Add Creative Assembly's PFH archive file format

[Benedikt Radtke]

Hey,

Creative Assembly has implemented a proprietary archive format and reuses it across all of their games. This commit adds basic support for the magic numbers in the preamble and identified header fields.

>From 8e1d226dbb11283fe03aebf258ba672451d909e7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Benedikt Radtke <benediktradtke at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2026 19:19:40 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Add Creative Assembly's PFH archive file format

Signed-off-by: Benedikt Radtke <benediktradtke at gmail.com>
---
 magic/Magdir/creativeassembly | 25 +++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 25 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 magic/Magdir/creativeassembly

diff --git a/magic/Magdir/creativeassembly b/magic/Magdir/creativeassembly
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..0e207149
--- /dev/null
+++ b/magic/Magdir/creativeassembly
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+
+#--------------------------------------------------------------
+# creativeassembly: file(1) magic for various Creative Assembly files
+#
+# Community file formats documentation: <https://github.com/TotalWar-Modding/docs>
+#--------------------------------------------------------------
+
+# Benedikt Radtke <benediktradtke at gmail.com>
+# PFH4 Archive
+0    lelong    0x34484650    Creative Assembly Archive version 4
+
+# Benedikt Radtke <benediktradtke at gmail.com>
+# PFH5 Archive
+0    lelong    0x35484650    Creative Assembly Archive version 5
+>&0    lelong&0xf        0x00    \b, boot archive
+>&0    lelong&0xf        0x01    \b, release archive
+>&0    lelong&0xf        0x02    \b, patch archive
+>&0    lelong&0xf        0x03    \b, mod archive
+>&0    lelong&0xf        0x04    \b, movie archive
+>&0    lelong&0x10        0x10    \b, data encrypted
+>&0    lelong&0x40        0x40    \b, timestamped files
+>&0    lelong&0x80        0x80    \b, index encrypted
+>&0    lelong&0x100    0x100    \b, big header
+>&0x0c    lelong        x        \b, %d files
+#>0x14    date        x        \b, created on %s
-- 
2.43.0


Kind regards,
Benni