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RimWorld mods from the Steam Workshop: subscribing, the mod list and a first setup

· 4 min read · ModsDrop

Official image from RimWorld
Image: official, via Steam.

This guide is for anyone who owns RimWorld on Steam and wants to add community mods without breaking a save or getting lost in the Mods menu. By the end you will know how subscribing works, how the mod list is organised, and how to build a small, stable first setup before you add more.

Before you touch any mods, back up your save. Copy the save folder somewhere safe, or at least duplicate the save file you care about. Mods can change how a colony behaves, and a bad combination can make an old save unplayable. A backup means you can always go back to where you started.

Subscribing on the Steam Workshop

RimWorld mods on Steam live on the Steam Workshop. You browse the Workshop pages from inside your Steam library or through the Workshop section tied to RimWorld, and you add a mod by subscribing to it. Steam then downloads the files in the background.

Only subscribe to mods from their own Workshop page. Avoid any copy that looks reposted or stripped down, since you cannot be sure what has been changed inside it. If an author has pulled a mod or stopped updating it, that is useful information in itself and worth noting before you rely on it for a long campaign.

Finding mods in the Mods menu

Once a mod is subscribed, it does not switch itself on. Open RimWorld and go to the Mods menu from the main menu. Every mod you have subscribed to on Steam shows up here as an entry you can turn on or off.

Subscribing only puts the mod on your machine. Turning it on inside the Mods menu is what actually loads it into a game. Keep this split in mind, because a mod that is subscribed but switched off has no effect on anything you play.

Setting up a first mod list

The Mods menu is also where you control the order mods load in, and order matters more than people expect. Content mods, patches, and mods that change how other mods work all read the list from top to bottom, so a mod that depends on another one generally needs to sit below it.

  1. Open the Mods menu and look at what is already enabled. Core and any official expansions you own will already be switched on.
  2. Subscribe to two or three mods you actually want, rather than a long list at once.
  3. Enable them in the Mods menu and check where the game or the mod’s own description suggests placing them relative to each other.
  4. Save the mod list and let the game restart, since RimWorld needs to reload after changes like this.
  5. Start a short test game or load an existing save and play for a while before adding anything else.

This slow approach matters more than it sounds. A handful of mods is easy to reason about if something breaks. Twenty mods added in one sitting is not, and you will have no quick way of knowing which one caused a problem.

Keep Core and the expansions at the top

Core and the official expansions you own should stay at the top of the mod list. Nearly everything else builds on what they add, so community mods are designed to load after them, not before. Leave their position alone unless a mod’s own instructions say otherwise.

If you ever see Core or an expansion pushed down the list by accident, move it back to the top. A misplaced Core entry is one of the more common reasons a mod list behaves oddly even when every individual mod looks fine on its own.

If something goes wrong

If the game fails to start, crashes on loading, or a save behaves strangely after a mod change, start by disabling the most recently added mods in the Mods menu rather than guessing at the whole list. Restart and see if the problem goes away.

If it does, you have found the mod or combination causing trouble. If disabling mods does not help, go back to the save backup you made earlier and try again from there with fewer mods active.

To remove a mod completely, switch it off in the Mods menu and then unsubscribe from it on the Steam Workshop. Switching it off stops it loading; unsubscribing removes the files from your machine. Do both if you want it gone for good, and restart the game afterwards so the change takes effect.

Keep your mod list modest for single-player saves you care about, and treat any online or multiplayer mode as a separate case: some communities and services do not allow modded play, so check before you bring a modded setup into one.

Write down the mods you are running somewhere outside the game, even just a short list in a text file. It takes a minute and saves a lot of guesswork the next time you add something new or troubleshoot an old save.

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