Look, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a masterpiece, but it’s a buggy, janky masterpiece. Henry’s journey from a lazy blacksmith's son to a knight of Bohemia is genuinely one of the best RPG experiences of the last decade, yet the vanilla game has some choices that just... well, they hurt. Whether it’s the restricted saving system or the fact that every bush in the woods acts like a solid brick wall, there are plenty of reasons why you’d want to learn how to mod Kingdom Come Deliverance.
Modding this game isn't quite like modding Skyrim. You aren't going to turn the dragons into Thomas the Tank Engine—mostly because there are no dragons—but you can transform the mechanical feel of the game into something much more fluid. It’s about refinement. It’s about making the combat feel less like a frantic wrestling match with a camera and more like the tactical swordplay Warhorse Studios intended.
Getting Your Head Around the Basics
Before you start dragging files into folders, you need to understand that KCD handles mods differently than your average Bethesda title. It uses the CryEngine. This means the game looks gorgeous, but it can be a bit finicky when you start poking at its guts. Honestly, the most important thing is creating a "Mods" folder. If you bought the game on Steam or GOG, head to your main directory. It’s usually something like SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\KingdomComeDeliverance.
If there isn't a folder named Mods there, just make one. Right-click, new folder, call it Mods. That is where 90% of your work happens.
Most people use Nexus Mods. It’s the gold standard. While the Vortex Mod Manager works for KCD, a lot of veterans in the community—people who have spent hundreds of hours in the rpf archives—will tell you that manual installation is often safer. Why? Because KCD mods are basically just .pak files. You drop them in a subfolder within that Mods directory, and usually, that’s it. But wait. Sometimes the game updates and breaks the mod.manifest files. If a mod doesn't have a manifest, the game might just ignore it entirely.
The Holy Grail: Unlimited Saving
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Savior Schnapps.
Warhorse wanted "consequence." They wanted you to be afraid of dying. In reality, it just meant players would lose forty minutes of progress because a group of peasants with polearms ambushed them on a fast-travel route. The "Unlimited Saving" mod is basically mandatory for anyone with a job or a life. It lets you save from the escape menu without burning through your alcohol supply.
Installing it is straightforward. You download the zip, extract the folder (usually named UnlimitedSaving) into your Mods folder, and boom. You're no longer a slave to the distillery. It changes the game from a stressful "will I lose my progress" simulator into an actual RPG you can enjoy.
The Technical Side of How to Mod Kingdom Come Deliverance
You're going to run into conflicts. It’s inevitable. When two mods try to change the same table—like the rpg_param.xml file—the game won't know which one to pick. Usually, KCD loads mods in alphabetical order.
If you have a mod that changes combat and another that changes economy, and they both happen to touch the same core file, the one lower down the alphabet usually wins. This is why you’ll see some modders tell you to rename your folders to aaa_ModName or zzz_ModName. It’s a primitive but effective way to manage load order without a complex tool.
Visual Fixes You Actually Need
The "Stay Clean Longer" mod is another big one. In the vanilla game, Henry gets covered in mud if he so much as looks at a puddle. It’s immersion-breaking. You spend half your Groschen at the bathhouse just to keep your Charisma stat from tanking.
Then there’s the "Bushes-Only_Collision" mod. This is a godsend. In the base game, bushes are solid objects. You can’t walk through a thin twig. It makes riding a horse through the woods a nightmare. This mod removes the collision from the leaves while keeping it for the trunks. It sounds small. It feels massive when you're galloping away from Cuman scouts.
The Performance Problem
KCD is a hog. Even on modern hardware in 2026, the engine can chug in places like Rattay or Sasau. Modding can actually help here. Look for "Optimized Graphic Presets." These aren't just "lower settings." They are community-made configurations that tweak the way the engine handles shadows and draw distance more efficiently than the developers did.
- Volumetric Fog: Turn it down or use a mod to disable it if your FPS is tanking.
- Shadows: The difference between "Ultra" and "High" is barely visible but costs 15 frames.
- Texture Streaming: There are user.cfg tweaks that force the game to use more of your VRAM, which stops that annoying "pop-in" where characters look like clay statues for five seconds when you talk to them.
What About the Bow Reticle?
Henry is terrible at archery. That’s intentional. But the fact that the HUD reticle disappears when you draw your bow is just annoying for a lot of players. You can fix this with a simple console command, but a mod makes it permanent.
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Just keep in mind: if you keep the reticle, you’re bypassing a huge part of the "learning" curve. Some say it ruins the game. I say it stops me from putting an arrow into my horse's head by accident.
Dealing with the "Deep" Mods
If you want to go beyond simple tweaks, you look at things like "Better Combat and Immersion Compilation" (BCIC). This is where how to mod Kingdom Come Deliverance gets complicated. These "overhaul" mods change everything—stamina usage, AI aggression, master strike windows.
If you install an overhaul, do it on a fresh save. Seriously. Trying to inject a massive combat overhaul into a 40-hour save file is asking for a corrupted heap of data.
Most of these overhauls require you to edit your user.cfg file. This file sits in your main game folder. You’ll need to add a line like exec user.cfg to your Steam launch options to make sure the game actually reads your custom settings. It’s a bit "PC Master Race" 2012-style tinkering, but it works.
Avoiding the Common Pitfalls
Don't overdo it. The CryEngine is fragile. If you stack thirty mods on top of each other, your loading screens will start taking five minutes, and you'll get the dreaded "Infinite Loading Screen" bug.
Always check the "Last Updated" date on Nexus. If a mod hasn't been touched since 2019, there is a high chance it won't work with the Royal Edition or the latest patches. Specifically, mods that alter the UI or the map are notorious for breaking after game updates.
- Read the Posts tab. On Nexus, the "Posts" or "Comments" section is more valuable than the description. People will post fixes for broken mods there.
- Backup your saves. Your save files are in
C:\Users\YourName\Saved Games\kingdomcome. Copy that folder before you do anything. - One by one. Install one mod. Run the game. Walk around. If it doesn't crash, install the next one.
The Reality of Modding KCD
At the end of the day, modding this game is about removing friction. The developers at Warhorse had a very specific, hardcore vision. It's a vision of a world where you're a nobody who can't read and can't swing a sword. Modding lets you decide exactly how much of that "realism" you actually want to deal with. Maybe you want the realistic swordplay but you hate the save system. Maybe you want the beautiful graphics but you need a crosshair for your bow.
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Practical Next Steps for Your Game
If you're ready to start, go to Nexus Mods and grab the KCD Mod Organizer. Even if you prefer manual installs, it’s a great way to see what you have active. Start with "Unlimited Saving" and "Stay Clean Longer." They are the "gateway mods" that don't mess with the game's core logic too much.
Once those are working, look into "Sorted Inventory." It adds tags like (Food), (Kit), or (Quest) to your items, so you aren't scrolling through a giant list of junk to find your bandages. After that, create your user.cfg file to tweak your FOV beyond what the menu allows. Standard KCD FOV is a bit claustrophobic; bumping it to 75 or 80 makes the world feel much larger. Just remember to add -devmode to your launch options if you plan on using the cheat console to fix any broken quests—which, let's be honest, you'll probably need to do at least once.