UE4 umap/uasset files not loading in UE - searching for solutions

[Metzger28]

Hi!

I'm currently trying to dig around in the files for "Last Year: The Nightmare". Specifically, I'm interested in the game's map files (not the individual meshes, but the compiled environments that the game is set in). The game's community is pretty much dead and the developer has all but shut down, so there isn't an opportunity to just jump into a few matches and record/screenshot stuff.

I'm a little familiar with 3D modeling, editing files, I've even got the game's entire content .pak fully extracted and sitting on my hard drive. The game's files load fine in Umodel, as well, so it looks like it was all a success.

In the past, with some other games, i've been able to grab .uasset files, .umap and whatnot and load them into UE and things load essentially fine. In the case of this game, however, only the folder structure itself loads in the content browser. none of the .umap/.uasset files appear in the browser and drag/dropping them generates a "failed to import" with an extension not recognized error.

In my digging around I've found that this could be due to 3 things:

1. Corrupt uasset/umap files.
2. UE version of file is later than the editor version.
3. Files were created in a modified version of the editor, and thus the stock UE editor doesn't recognize them.

What I've been able to trace so far:

1. The files appear fine, they load in Umodel and their contents extract without issue.
2. LY.TN uses UE 4.21, editor is 4.26
3. Most likely, Elastic Games used a modified version of the editor to make the game.

I've also read that editing the offending files to get around this issue (or modifying UE to ignore the issue) is possible, but that's outside of what I'd know how to do.

Has anyone else run into this issue or perhaps know where I might be able to look? I honestly just want to explore the maps a bit and document them, but the game requires multiplayer matches to actually load into any levels, and with the community being dead and the developer effectively shut down, it's next to impossible.

Thanks!
-Metzger