Is it unethical to "pirate" free promotional software after the promotion is done?

I play a video game and a few years back, they had a promotion with a soft drink company. You could get these items for the game if you entered a promotional code found in the caps of the drink.

The promotion is long gone. You cannot purchase the items. I found a site that has “pirated” copies of the items that you can download and install into your game. They are specifically fixed so that the game doesn’t know they are “illegal” copies and rejects the attempt to download.

I am just curious. Is it wrong to download software that cost no money and is no longer available? My husband thinks it’s piracy regardless, because you have to “break” the software to make it run on the game. IMO, it was free and the promotion is long gone so it doesn’t matter.

I was just looking for some outside opinions.