What is the TIGER file format?
.tiger is a proprietary binary game data archive used by Crystal Dynamics' CDC Engine, first introduced with the *Tomb Raider* reboot in 2013. Every .tiger file begins with the four-byte signature TAFS (Tiger Archive FileSystem) at offset zero, immediately followed by a 4-byte little-endian version number.
Games ship as a numbered set of archives - typically bigfile.000.tiger through bigfile.003.tiger - with individual files reaching 1.5 GB to 2 GB each. The format replaced the older Bigfile container used in pre-2013 Tomb Raider titles.
A defining characteristic of the .tiger format is that internal file names are not stored as readable strings. Every asset entry is indexed by its CRC-32 hash, making the archive opaque without a pre-built hash dictionary. Stored assets include meshes, textures, sounds, and game scripts.
Three generations of Crystal Dynamics titles use the format with minor incompatibilities:
- *Tomb Raider* (2013) and *Rise of the Tomb Raider* (2015) use standard CRC-32 hashing
- *Shadow of the Tomb Raider* (2018) uses a different CRC algorithm, breaking compatibility with older extraction tools
The community tool Gibbed Tiger Unpacker can extract assets from the 2013 and 2015 variants. No encryption is applied to the archive itself; content is raw game asset data. The format is not an open standard and has no registered MIME type.
Security & safety
RISK: LOWTIGER files are passive game data archives containing no executable code that runs outside the game engine. They pose no risk to end users who simply encounter them in a Steam folder. Modding tools that extract contents are community-maintained and generally safe.
Format details
in a nutshellPrograms that open TIGER files
Windows1 app
Gibbed Tiger Unpacker (community tool)
Open-source Run command-line tool: unpack.exe bigfile.000.tiger -o output_folder - extracts known assets by hash. Technical details
deep spec| Magic bytes | 54 41 46 53 ("TAFS") at offset 0 |
| Version field | 4-byte little-endian integer immediately following magic bytes |
| Byte order | Little-endian |
| Asset indexing | CRC-32 hashes used as filenames - no plain-text filenames stored in archive |
| Typical archive size | 1.5 GB - 2 GB per file |
| Deployment | Numbered set: bigfile.000.tiger through bigfile.003.tiger |
| Compression | Per-entry (individual game assets may be compressed internally) |
| CRC variant | CRC-32 for TR2013 and ROTTR (2015); incompatible algorithm in Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) |
| Platform targets | Windows, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S |
| Container type | Custom proprietary TAFS binary archive |
| Stored asset types | Meshes, textures, audio, game scripts |
| Predecessor format | Older Bigfile container from pre-2013 Tomb Raider titles |
| Extraction tool | Gibbed Tiger Unpacker (community-developed) |
| MIME type | Unregistered (application/octet-stream by default) |
| Released | 2013 (Tomb Raider reboot) |
| Latest version | Shadow of the Tomb Raider variant (2018) - uses different CRC algorithm |
| Specification | cdcengine.re |
Community Q&A
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