Extract text from Bethesda game archives (BA2)
To convert BA2 archives to another format, you need Creation Kit or other Game software.
To convert other file formats to the "Game Asset Archive File" file type, you need software like Creation Kit or a similar tool.
The .BA2 file format is a proprietary game asset archive used primarily by Bethesda Game Studios in their Creation Engine titles, including Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Starfield. These archives bundle thousands of individual game files - like 3D meshes, textures, audio tracks, and scripts - into a single container to optimize load times and save disk space. The official Creation Kit or community-developed utilities like Bethesda Archive Extractor (B.A.E.) are necessary to open or extract data from these files.
Converting or extracting a .BA2 file is a common necessity for PC gamers who want to create or modify game assets. The major disadvantage of the .BA2 format is that it is strictly proprietary. Standard archiving utilities like WinRAR or 7-Zip cannot open them. Furthermore, these archives often exceed several gigabytes in size, making them cumbersome to share or manage without specialized gaming tools.
Typically, users do not convert a .BA2 into another archive format directly; instead, they extract its contents to access specific target formats. Textures are usually extracted as DDS files, 3D models as NIF files, and audio as WAV or XWM files. Once extracted, you can edit these files and repack them.
Because this is a closed, niche format designed exclusively for a specific game engine, standard online file converters completely fail to process it. Just drag and drop your file to identify the format, view it, and convert it when possible on convert.guru. We can inspect the file header and show internal metadata. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your BA2 file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted ESP, B2A, ESM, NIF, 20O and STREAMINGASSETS files.
If you want to convert BA2 file to EXE, ISO, BIN, CUE, PAK, WAD, PK3, PK4, BSP, MAP, SAV or DAT, you can use Creation Kit or similar software from the "Game Asset Archive" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert MOD, BIN, CFG, SCX, DAT, MPQ, LOG, CUE, INI, EXE, SCM or ISO files to BA2, try Creation Kit or another comparable tool in the "Game Asset Archive" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our BA2 converter.