AEI File

What are AEI files and how to open them

Are you having problems opening an AEI file or are you simply curious about its contents? We're here to explain the properties of these files and provide you with software that can open or handle your AEI files.

What is an AEI file?

An .AEI file is an Abyss Engine Image Format file.

The Abyss Engine Image format is a proprietary image file type used to store packed texture data for games built with Abyss Engine. It holds the artwork needed for in-game graphics - icons, UI elements, fonts, diffuse textures, and sometimes normal/specular data. When the game runs it loads the AEI file to render multiple smaller textures ("sub-images" or "textures" inside the AEI) from a single full image for efficiency.

The files are created by the game studio's content build tools - typically during the asset pipeline for games like Galaxy on Fire 2 - and are used by the engine at runtime. Modding tools have been made to convert from PNG into .AEI and from .AEI back to PNG, allowing editing of the textures. The engine supports various compression methods (including uncompressed, ETC, DXT, PVRTC, ATC) and optional mipmaps, and in some AEIs the alpha channel stores data such as specularity or other effects. Textures are defined inside the AEI by bounding boxes within the single large canvas.

Files begin with the ASCII signature AEimage at offset 0 ("bytes 0x4145696D616765") identifying the format. The header includes a separator byte, a compression‐algorithm identifier, the full image width and height, number of textures, followed by a sequence of texture origin/dimension entries; BGRA channel order is used rather than RGBA.

How to open AEI files

Important: Different programs may use files with the AEI file extension for different purposes, so unless you are sure which format your AEI file is, you may need to try a few different programs.

We have not yet verified any programs for Windows that work with this specific file format. If you know one, please use the 'Suggest a program' link below. Thanks!

Last updated: August 17, 2026

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