A PC game trainer is a small program that runs alongside a game and modifies its values in real-time — things like health, currency, experience points, or movement speed. The trainer reads and writes to the game's active memory without altering any game files on disk, so there is nothing to uninstall when you're done.

Trainers have been part of PC gaming since the DOS era and are a completely legitimate tool for enjoying single-player games at your own pace. They're especially useful for accessibility, replaying old titles, testing builds, or simply having more fun without grinding.

Yes — completely and permanently free. There are no subscriptions, no premium tiers, no paywalls behind specific options, and no "tokens" to purchase. Every trainer and every option is available to everyone at no cost.

We also don't show intrusive advertising. DarkTrainer is a passion project built for the PC gaming community.

No account is required at any point. You can browse the site, download trainers, and use every feature entirely anonymously. We do not ask for your email address, Steam login, or any personal information.

We currently offer trainers for ArcheAge Chronicles, Queen's Domain, Horses of Hoofprint Bay, Legend of Defenders, and Loftia. New trainers are added regularly based on community interest and game popularity.

If you'd like to see a trainer for a game that isn't listed, feel free to reach out — we consider all requests and prioritize games with active player communities.

It's possible, and this is a well-known issue with the entire trainer and cheat-engine category of software — not specific to DarkTrainer. Antivirus programs flag trainers as suspicious because they use the same low-level techniques (process memory scanning and modification) that some malware also uses. This is a false positive, not an indication of actual malware.

To verify a trainer yourself, upload it to VirusTotal.com before running it. A small number of detections (under ~5 out of 72 engines) is typical for clean trainer software. A high detection count across many reputable engines would warrant genuine concern.

If your antivirus quarantines the file, you can usually restore it from quarantine and add an exception for the trainer's folder. See the question below for step-by-step instructions.

Trainers are safe to use in single-player and offline game modes. Because they only modify your local game process in memory — not any server-side data — there is no mechanism by which a ban could occur in a purely offline context.

However, never use a trainer in an online or multiplayer game. Anti-cheat systems like Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC), Easy Anti-Cheat, and BattlEye actively detect memory modifications and will permanently ban your account. This applies even to games that have both single-player and multiplayer components — always close the trainer before going online.

• ✓ Safe: single-player campaigns, offline modes, local co-op
• ✗ Not safe: any online multiplayer, ranked modes, games with VAC/EAC

No. DarkTrainer trainers contain no malware, spyware, adware, cryptominers, or any other unwanted software. The download is a clean ZIP archive containing only the trainer executable.

We encourage you to verify every download independently. Upload the file to VirusTotal.com and review the results. Any detections you see will be generic heuristic flags based on the trainer's memory-access behavior — not signatures of real malicious code.

Trainers require no installation — they run as standalone executables. Here's the standard process:

• 1. Download the ZIP archive from the trainer page.
• 2. Extract the ZIP to a folder of your choice (e.g. your Desktop).
• 3. Launch your game first and wait until you're in-game.
• 4. Run the trainer executable (.exe) as Administrator (right-click → Run as administrator).
• 5. The trainer overlay will appear. Use the listed hotkeys or toggle options in the UI.

Running the trainer as Administrator is important — without elevated permissions, it cannot access the game's process memory and options will not function.

This is expected behavior. When a game updates, the memory addresses the trainer relies on often change, causing the trainer to lose track of the values it needs to modify. The trainer isn't broken — it simply needs to be rebuilt against the new game version.

When a game patches, we update the corresponding trainer as quickly as possible. Check the trainer's page for the "Last Updated" date, and re-download the latest version. If a trainer is not yet updated for the latest patch, the page will note this.

No — and we strongly advise against it. Using a trainer in any online or multiplayer environment is against virtually every game's Terms of Service and will almost certainly result in a permanent ban from that game.

Anti-cheat software (VAC, Easy Anti-Cheat, BattlEye, etc.) monitors for exactly the kind of memory modifications that trainers perform. Even if a game didn't ban you immediately, using cheats online ruins the experience for other players. All DarkTrainer trainers are built exclusively for single-player and offline use.

Crashes during trainer use are usually caused by one of three things: the trainer is not updated for the current game version, you activated an option at an unsupported moment (e.g. during a cutscene or loading screen), or you're running the trainer without Administrator privileges.

Try these steps in order:

• Ensure you're running the trainer as Administrator.
• Check that the trainer version matches the installed game version.
• Only activate options once you're fully in-game, not during menus or loading.
• Try activating options one at a time to identify which one triggers the crash.

If none of these help, the trainer may need an update for a recent game patch. Check back on the trainer page for a newer release.

All DarkTrainer trainers are built for Windows 10 and Windows 11 (64-bit). They are not compatible with Windows 7, Windows 8, macOS, or Linux. If you're using Linux with a compatibility layer like Proton or Wine, trainer behavior is unpredictable and not supported.

Both the trainer and the game must be 64-bit versions. If you're running a 32-bit game, the trainer will not attach correctly.

Windows SmartScreen flags executables that don't yet have a large number of verified downloads from a known publisher. This is a reputation-based system, not a malware scanner — a new or infrequently downloaded executable will trigger it regardless of its actual content.

To bypass the SmartScreen warning: click "More info" on the warning dialog, then click "Run anyway". This tells Windows you understand the warning and choose to proceed. You only need to do this once per trainer file.

The exact steps vary by antivirus, but the general process is to add the trainer's folder as an exclusion (sometimes called "whitelist" or "exception") so the antivirus ignores it during scans. Here's how to do it in Windows Defender:

• Open Windows Security → Virus & threat protection
• Click Manage settings under "Virus & threat protection settings"
• Scroll to Exclusions and click Add or remove exclusions
• Click Add an exclusion → Folder
• Select the folder where you extracted the trainer

For third-party antivirus software (Avast, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes, etc.), look for "Exclusions", "Whitelist", or "Trusted Files" in the program's settings panel.