Authors: Challenger Andy

Mods and mod tools are typically made for specific patches of the game, requiring use to match our game version to the one the mod supports if we want to use that mod (or go through the process of updating the mod ourselves). This tutorial details how to identify what patch the mod supports using several different methods.

In the best case scenario, the mod page on Nexus or GitHub will label the game version the mod supports. Sometimes the author will list it in the Description, other times you might have to search through the Changelogs and see if they listed it there. Changelogs are accessed through the Logs Tab on Nexus or using the dropdown menu on the main page of the mod. On Github, this is usually on the homepage of the download or in the changelogs included on the Releases page.

Hopefully, you have a regulation.bin that comes with your mod. We can simply use WitchyBND to tell us the param version (and thus game version) of the regulation.bin. Drag the regulation.bin onto the WitchyBND.exe. After it has unpacked, open the resulting regulation-bin folder. Open the _witchy-bnd4.xml file with your preferred text editor (Notepad++ is recommended). Look at the line marked version. As we can see in the picture below, the version of my regulation bin is 1.12.4 (ignore the last 4 numbers).

In the worst case scenario, you don’t have the author telling you anything or a regulation.bin to examine. This is where things get very difficult and require guessing hopefully aided by an immense amount of knowledge behind game files. It might even be better to continually try versions of the game until it works. Things that can help to make better guesses are looking at the most recent update or when the mod was originally uploaded and cross-reference those with the patches of the game released at the time. On Nexus, these are found near the top of the main page. If you made the mod yourself, you can potentially look at the dates of files modified. Some files were not added to the game until after certain dates, most notably the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.

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