I'll add a bit to this. Sorry, but I'm a bit "wordy" by nature
The "mod launcher" mentioned in previous posts is:
- A great way to load mods into your game
- Only works on Windows (not Mac or Linux OS's)
- Comes with a list of supported mods it will install (more on this below)
- Allows you to easily load the more "complicated" mods. As mentioned above: This includes the DMT/C# mods mentioned by
@khzmusik (mods that require compiling with special tools that normally you would need to install on your system. the mod launcher comes with those tools) as well as the mods that require more than just putting them into the "Mods" folder (these are usually the large overhaul mods like Darkness Falls. These overhaul mods add a lot of changes and sometimes special content for only that mod. I mention this one as its quite popular with the streaming community, though there are about 10-20? other large overhaul mods that all change the game up a lot. The mod launcher makes it very easy to install and try out almost all of them!)
Having said that, the mod launcher doesn't include EVERY mod out there (you'll find a lot on nexusmods that are not in the launcher as the launcher cannot pull/install mods from nexusmods). In order for a modder to get their mods added to the mod launcher list of mods they have to make a request to the developer of the mod launcher, and possibly do some work to make it compatible/easy for the mod launcher to use (like make a copy that's not on nexusmods). Its not a difficult thing to do, but not all modders do this. As a result, you may find or know of some mods that are not in the mod launcher mod list. If you do find one, its *highly* likely that is is a "basic XML mod" and does not require any special work to install besides copying it to a special folder in the game, but it may be a more complicated mod with special installation steps.
For all of these other mods (not listed in the mod launcher) you can usually follow the instructions that come with mod itself and/or in the links from
@BFT2020 and data from
@Gamida above.
Also: You don't *have* to use the mod launcher, its just a super easy and convenient way to not only load mods, but keep track of several games with different mods in them, as well as find "compatible mods" for the game version you are running ( like a18, a19, etc). You can not use the mod launcher and just manually copy or compile or do "whatever" is needed to install each mod you want, but it can be a bit of a pain to do if you want to load a lot of them or load a large one like Darkness Falls.
Also: The modding system isn't likely "done" yet (my opinion!), so its not possible for modders to know how their mod works with other mods when they make them. The game also will let you load mods (from, say a very old version of the game) that are incompatible with the current version of the game. This can cause issues with your game (not permanent, but it can break recipes or other things when you're playing or cause the game to not load until you remove the mod). This also means that one mod might be incompatible with another mod ( say they both try to change the same block or weapon) so loading >1 mod can cause issues. Without going into how to deal with this or know its happening, this alone is a good reason people choose to just use the mod launcher load the larger overhaul mods (like Darkness Falls) as not only do these large overhaul mods have a lot of new content but they usually also come with a large set of the smaller mods (that you could have loaded yourself) but these have been tuned and balanced and all work together so there are few (if any) mod incompatibilities. And if you find any you can reach out to the overhaul mod author on these forums (generally) and they can confirm its a bug (and fix it) or explain why its not a bug.