How to install mods in The Long Dark

Mods are only compatible with Steam and GOG versions of the game for Windows currently.

This website is in no way affiliated with Hinterland Games and only aims to provide easy access to published mods for the game.

  1. If you haven't turned off sharing crash reports and analytics, launch TLD and turn these off first.
    It's important! Let's not bug Hinterland with issues unless you're certain it's their fault.
  2. Make sure to backup your saves before modding, mods are usually tested, but bad stuff happens sometimes. You can find your saves in C:\Users\[your-windows-user]\AppData\Local\Hinterland\TheLongDark.
  3. First of all, make sure you have the Melon Loader requirements installed. For current version of TLD these are:
  4. Next, we need MelonLoader:
    • Download MelonLoader.Installer.exe here.
    • Run MelonLoader.Installer.exe - doesn't matter where
    • Make sure to install the latest version
    • Select the tld.exe executable in your TheLongDark install directory
      (e.g. at C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\TheLongDark)
    • Wait for the download and installation to complete!
  5. Download any mods you want using the icon, and place the .dll files inside the Mods folder that MelonLoader created in your game directory (In some cases you might need to extract the .dll from a .zip)
  6. Make sure you've also installed any dependency the mod might need
  7. Launch TLD and enjoy your modded game :)

Common Issues

MelonLoader errors with "iL2CPP-init detour failed: one of the dependent libraries is missing"

You need to install .NET 6 runtime

MelonLoader shows something about missing UnhollowerBaseLib in the console

The mod you've installed isn't updated to current TLD version yet, remove it from the mods folder

The game crashes when opening it

Make sure you've installed MelonLoader 0.6.0

I have the game on Epic, I installed ML 0.6.0 but it keeps crashing

Epic version has an anti-tamper system that prevents ML from loading, so it's currently not possible to be modded.

ML 0.6.0 doesn't appear on the list when I'm installing

Go to settings on the installer and check "Show Alpha Pre-Releases"

I want to uninstall MelonLoader

Run the installer again and select the tld.exe, the install button should change into an uninstall one.

Alternatively, you can delete MelonLoader, Mods, Plugins, UserData and UserLibs folders, and dobby.dll and version.dll files from your game's folder.

Do mods work on wintermute (story mode)?

Currenty, not. Survival and Story have been separated and are two different games now, in theory, installing a different MelonLoader with its own mods to story should work, but there seems to be some problems with it loading.