Guide to Modding and Recommended Mods

Unleash the full potential of Monster Hunter: WORLD with this in-depth modding guide! Discover game-changing mods that'll elevate your gameplay experience. Dive in now, even if you're just browsing, you never know what hidden gems you might find. Happy modding and enjoy the hunt!

This guide contains:
- Extensive information and detailed comments about mods and modding (including troubleshooting)
- Multiple lists of recommended mods categorized accordingly (with links, obviously)
- Humor (it would be too dry otherwise)
- Some complaining and swearing (mostly for a comedic effect)
- ʰᵃʳᵈ ᵗᵒ ʳᵉᵃᵈ ᵗᵉˣᵗ ⁽ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ᴵ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵏ ᴵ'ᵐ ˡᵒˢᶦⁿᵍ ᶦᵗ ᶠᵒʳ ʳᵉᵃˡ ᵗʰᶦˢ ᵗᶦᵐᵉ⁾

Introduction and Preparation

WARNING: I am not liable for any damage to your save file or other negative consequences of using mods. It is your responsibility to back up your save file regularly and use mods responsibly. Cheating is not endorsed unless it does not affect other players.

By continuing to read this guide, you acknowledge and accept these terms.

With that out of the way, let us begin.

Firstly, our source of mods: Nexus Mods MHW[www.nexusmods.com] Feel free to look around since there is a lot to discover! I'm sure you will find a mod you might like that isn't listed in this guide. Odds are, it will be purely cosmetic, however.

Adding mods to this game is significantly easier than making them and does not require any external tools by default. You simply need to drop the mods into the relevant folder. Mod authors usually put the mods in the relevant folders themselves, so all you have to do is extract them into the game directory.

If you are afraid of any sort of consequence for modding or cheating, let me enlighten you: Capcom just doesn't care if you mod the game for Performance/QoL or cheat blatantly. You don't need to fear a ban no matter what you do. Achievements are still obtainable even if you use mods. They just don't care, it seems.

There is anti-cheat in the game. However, the only thing the "anti-cheat" is capable of doing is to disconnect you from the session when you use specific memory-altering scripts. You usually find those in Cheat Engine tables or trainers. Even then, 80% of the scripts won't cause the said reaction. The anti-cheat practically does not exist.

I'll be upfront about some topics in advance. If you ask any question this guide has already an answer to, I'll simply delete your comment. This includes things you can simply read off of mod pages (like prerequisites or how to install). I'll still gladly answer your questions regarding other aspects of mods and modding, of course, like I did before.

The previous paragraph also applies to "X mod belongs to Y section because [insert reason]" arguments. I'll only change which mod belongs to what section IF whoever suggested it states some solid reasons to suggest such a change. All mods are where they should be, even if someone out there agrees or disagrees with some entries.

Before starting any sort of modding, see below:

• Make sure you have a folder called "NativePC" in install location (usually under \Steam\steamapps\common\Monster Hunter World). You don't need to create the NativePC folder yourself, since most mods are packed just with the folder itself to be merged automatically when extracted. Needless to say, that's the folder where mod stuff goes into.
  
• BACK UP YOUR SAVE! It's located under: "\Steam\userdata\[YOUR STEAM ID HERE]\582010\remote". Copy "SAVEDATA1000" to a safe location and possibly an external drive to be even safer. Back up often! Mods won't break your save file directly, but other problems like crashing may cause save corruption. Always have multiple backups! You can never be too safe!
  

Essentials

The mods, tools and the only expansion DLC in this list are strongly recommended before getting and using anything else. Some of them are required for certain other mods to function.

ᵗʰᵉʸ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗʰᵉᶦʳ ᵒʷⁿ ᵗᵃᵇ ᶜᵃˡˡᵉᵈ "ᴱˢˢᵉⁿᵗᶦᵃˡˢ" ᶠᵒʳ ᵃ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ʳᵉᵃˢᵒⁿ

Iceborne

"Because the game is basically doubled in size and content when you buy this thing. Screw the asinine clagger and HZV changes, though." - Mr. September

Now, you may ask, "Why the hell did you put the only relevant DLC for MHW in this list, Mr. September?". The reason is fairly simple. Most mods had to be remade and/or updated in order to make them work after the release of Iceborne. In Layman's terms, Iceborne added more things that should be accounted for when modifying most files, so the file sizes and contents are both increased by varying amounts due to the new entries the files now have.

Most mods that require Iceborne will likely do absolutely nothing if you use them without owning Iceborne. There's a chance they might cause issues like crashing, but it's unlikely. When in doubt, just try and see if it works or not. The mods that change base game content (alongside Iceborne content) should work, even if the author claims that you need Iceborne.

In short, Iceborne is required in order to load and use most mods listed in this guide. Many mods will still load and work without Iceborne, if they change base game content as well. It's still recommended to have Iceborne before considering using mods, however.

The other mods/tools in this section are excluded from this generalization and will work at all times.

Stracker's Loader[www.nexusmods.com]

"This mod will allow all files to load from nativePC again. It also implements the previous Quest Loader's features."

This tool used to be an essential for all mods before Capcom changed NativePC functionality. Nowadays, it only enables support for certain mods and plugins since Capcom just didn't bother disabling NativePC functionality after people broke through it. MT Framework works in mysterious ways, it seems.

With the Fatalis update, Stracker's Loader is no longer required for NativePC functionality, however it's still generally a good idea to set up, even if only for Performance Booster. It also comes with Quest Loader, which lets you load custom quests.

Some mods will not load/work without this thing. Mind that Stracker's Loader does NOT go into NativePC folder, but instead should be extracted to where the game's main executable. I recommend you to install it manually to prevent potential issues related to mod managers installing it wrong.

Stracker's Loader comes with Quest Loader, which is REQUIRED to load custom quest mods. Custom quests won't load without the Quest Loader.

Performance Booster and Plugin Extender[www.nexusmods.com]

"Improves the game performance by removing swathes of extremely unoptimized code that is ultimately irrelevant to the game functioning. Also enables more advanced plugins to run properly."

An essential if you plan to use certain plugins or mods I will mention in the upcoming sections. This miraculous little mod also improves performance. What more can I say?

Some mods will not work without this thing as well. Notably, plugin mods. Recommended to be installed manually, like Stracker's Loader.

MHW Mod Manager[www.nexusmods.com]

"A simple to use (hopefully) robust generic mod management tool for managing the files installed by mod archives."

This tool lets you streamline the modding process by letting you install and manage mods on a single interface. If you plan to use multiple mods, you will eventually get clashing ones and lose track of what you installed so far. Forget about Vortex and embrace Mod Manager.

It lags a little when working with large files, but it's still better than modding by hand (tedious and frustrating) or using Vortex (known to cause issues for some people for no apparent reason).

Tic Rate Fix[www.nexusmods.com]

"Fixes a coding oversight where frame-rates different than 60fps have issue with multi-hit attacks (such as pierce and attacks that can tic multiple times in one action) and causes a significant loss of dps."

This mod fixes tick rates for FPS lower or higher than 60. This means that if you had more or less than 60 FPS while playing, you were losing damage while performing attacks that have multiple hits per move. Piercing attacks that deal damage many times after being executed, like piercing ammo and Dragon Piercer deal less damage if your FPS is not a multiple of 60, for some reason. This tiny mod changes how damage calculation is handled for attacks that tick multiple times, so you don't lose or gain damage anymore for certain attacks anymore.

SafeNet[www.nexusmods.com]

"SafeNet is a small plugin for Monster Hunter: World that could potentially prevent de-serialization attacks (with type confusion) against the MHW game client over SteamWorks P2P networking.

There are no claims that you need this plugin for MHW to be safe, nor any claims that this fully protects the client from de-serialization attacks. I made this for myself, but am publishing it in case others want to use it."

This screenshot will serve as the explanation:

You can find installation methods in the mod pages. Some mods or tools may require different methods, so be sure to read carefully. Some mods may also require other prerequisites to function, so make sure you double-check if you have everything necessary.

Mod List for New Hunters

As the title already suggests, this section will list mods I particularly recommend for a "first ever" playthrough. Odds are, you will only have one character anyway, and stay at the endgame for an extended amount of time; unless you quit right after Fatalis, I guess.

The main purpose of this section is to make it easier for first-timers to get into picking their first batch of mods, especially since we have an overwhelming amount of mods listed in this guide and the number only goes up over time. Surely, a "starter pack" of sorts will save new folks from getting cold feet after they see the sheer amount of mods we got in this guide (and the paragraphs of text that accompany them).

To save my sanity, time, and space in this guide, this section will only include the mod names, so you will have to use CTRL + F to find them in the guide and read what the mods do (along with my comments about them, of course). You gotta put in some effort as well, after all, my dear reader. The guide is already pretty damn long as it is, despite my efforts to keep it as concise as I could without sacrificing other aspects of it (like entertainment). I don't think we need another section that lists tens of mods with full-blown explanations. We have close to a dozen of them already.

Anyway, enough nonsense. Here comes the main dish:

Everything in Essentials is essentially a must-have ʰᵉʰ. Figure out how to use the MHW Mod Manager and you will be fine for the most part when dealing with the mods.

Recommended Mods ("must-have"s):

1. Monster Weakness Icon Indicator for Iceborne (Hi-Res)
2. Descriptive Food Skills (Iceborne)
3. Better Input Detection
4. Dropped Items EFX
5. Permanent Shiny Drops
6. Infinite Monster Guiding Lands Timer
7. Decoration Drop Rate Overhaul
8. Modern Decoration System Iceborne Edition
9. No Fog When Elders Spawn in Ancient Forest/Wildspire Waste/Coral Highlands/Elder Recess/Hoarfrost Reach
10. No Fog in the Rotten Valley 2.0
11. No Fog when Elders Spawn in the Guiding Lands 3.0
12. Nerf Defender Armor and Weapons (to the ground)
13. Seliana Smooth Smithy
14. Guiding Lands Streamlined Bone and Coal Gathering Animations
15. RegionSet
16. Gunner Defense Rework
17. Better Palico AI
18. Easier to See Slinger Ammo Gathering Spots
19. Better Skill Descriptions (English)
20. Louder 'Quest Posted' Sound
21. Glowing Guiding Lands Gathering Spots

Optional Mods (up to personal taste and playstyle):

1. Reduce or Remove Bloom
2. No Blur Special Scope
3. Don't Change FOV When Using Special Scope
4. Bow Sticky Aim Removal
5. Mute Palico Coral Horn in My House
6. Snow Layering Removal
7. Concise Hunting Horn Effect Names (Iceborne)
8. Disable Profanity Filter
9. Longsword Spirit Gauge Indicator
10. Reduced WSB Blast and Smoke Effects
11. Cuter Handler Face Model (Post-Iceborne) aka Make Handler Cuter Again
12. Blood EFX
13. Bloody Broken Parts
14. Remove Felyne Puns (Updated)
15. Critical Effect Intensity Reduced

Honorable Mentions

In this section (and the following Honorable Mention sections, since I'll surely run out of space), I'll be listing the most useful mods I have personally been using since the moment I found them. The descriptions typed in italic font are taken straight from the mod pages.

The mods in this section are mainly for Quality of Life and Performance. The mods are not ordered in any particular order, so the latest usually ends up at the very bottom of the list unless I reorder them to group similar ones for convenience.

Reduce or Remove Bloom[www.nexusmods.com]

"This mod allows you to reduce or remove the bloom effect from the game entirely."

Let's be honest, no one likes blinding amounts of Bloom. This mod doesn't only increase your QoL but also enhances performance slightly as well. It should have been an "on-off" toggle in the game settings but Capcom's ᵗᵒᵒ ᵇˡᵒᵒᵈʸ ˢᵐᵃʳᵗ ᶠᵒʳ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ˢʰᶦᵗ ᵃʳᵉⁿ'ᵗ ᵗʰᵉʸ

Lack of bloom may look strange for some instances. A good example is shiny/glowing face paint.

Monster Weakness Icon Indicator for Iceborne (Hi-Res)[www.nexusmods.com]

"A mod that indicates the monster's property weakness."

Elemental Weakness icons on monster icons. Useful for players ranging from newbie to pro. You don't have to check the wiki anymore for that crap. Best part? This mod's icons are of much higher quality than the default ones.

Descriptive Food Skills (Iceborne)[www.nexusmods.com]

"The usual meal skill names won't help you much unless you memorize them. This mod changes meal skill titles to their effects to reduce confusion. You can see what a buff does at a glance now! Includes 8 languages."

I remade this mod myself for Iceborne after the original creator abandoned it. I loved the mod, and it was fairly easy to make text-replacing mods, so here we are. Highly recommended not because I made it but because meal buffs are all variants of "Felyne [Something]" which isn't very helpful unless you memorize them ⁽ᵃˢ ᴵ ˢᵃᶦᵈ ᶦⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ᵈᵉˢᶜʳᶦᵖᵗᶦᵒⁿ⁾.

Better Input Detection[www.nexusmods.com]

"This mod ensures that holding a button is detected as an input in the first legal frame. This makes inputs feel more responsive during play, specially noticeable with item consumption.

Examples of big differences that you will notice during gameplay:
-Can hold pick-up key while running over items/drops
-Can hold use item key to sheathe+use item with only 1 key press.
-Can hold attack buttons to continue combo chains
-Can hold attack button to machine gun fire with bowguns."

Not much to explain here. This mod saves your wrists by letting you hold buttons, instead of mashing them.

However, due to how MHW works, this mod practically spams held buttons. This may cause issues with Toggle keybinds, like "Toggle Aim". You can only solve this issue by using "Hold" inputs like "Hold to Aim" instead. It will feel a little weird at first when you start using this mod, but once you get used to it, you won't be going back.

No Blur Special Scope[www.nexusmods.com]

"Un-Immersive Unblurry Special Scope. For those that don't like the visual distortion of the special scope. FOV was left untouched."

This mod is marvelous because Special Scope blur can induce a headache. Also, to note, Special Scope adds around 30% damage. Which means you'll eventually use it if you play HBG. Best used together with the below mod.

Don't Change FOV When Using Special Scope[www.nexusmods.com]

"Only change POV when using special scope, not changing FOV. No FOV change when zoom in and out when using scope too."

This coupled with the above mod makes the Special Scope playable. ʸᵃʸ ⁿᵒ ᵐᵒʳᵉ ʰᵉᵃᵈᵃᶜʰᵉˢ

Remove Clagger Nothing Else[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes clagger, doesn't do anything else."

Having no claw stagger means the game's combat flow doesn't get interrupted constantly by monsters reeling and drooling. I recommend this mod because I hate the stagger mechanic, and it doesn't help me whatsoever. In fact, I usually miss my hits since the monster decided to move erratically all of a sudden. ᶜˡᵘᵗᶜʰ ᶜˡᵃʷ ˢᵘᶜᵏˢ ᵗᵇʰ

WARNING: While using this mod, you can't complete "Learning the Clutch" quest due to your attacks not dealing any claw stagger. The only way to complete the quest is to remove the mod before doing it and (optionally) add it back again.

This mod is only active if you host the quest. It means that you will see clagger if you join SOS or someone else's quest.

Especially recommended if you want to have a pre-Iceborne experience.

Bow Sticky Aim Removal[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes Bow's Sticky Aim. This is the very annoying mechanic where the aim will auto track the last place your arrows hit whenever you dash without touching your aim (and most of the time miss as whatever was there moved)."

This should help with the "moonshots".

Glowing Guiding Lands Gathering Spots[www.nexusmods.com]

"- Makes
* Mining nodes glow Light Blue
* Bone nodes glow Bright Yellow"

Maybe it wasn't that great of an idea to make the gathering nodes in Guiding Lands perfectly camouflaged, eh, Capcom?

Dropped Items EFX[www.nexusmods.com]

"Adds icons above monster, bandit mantle, and slinger ammo drops."

Despite Capcom adding more visibility in Iceborne, the crystals that drop are just a little shinier at best. You actually need pillars of light or icons to see them properly. This mod adds pillars of light and icons according to drop type. You also get to pick what style and size you want to use.

Permanent Shiny Drops[www.nexusmods.com]

"Makes shinies remain in the ground forever. This includes the guiding lands where you can realistically have them remain... FOREVER."

This mod is exceptional, considering dropped stuff have limited lifespan for some unknown reason. Now you can just focus on the hunt without having to constantly worry about the drops disappearing on you.

Infinite Monster Guiding Lands Timer[www.nexusmods.com]

"Makes the monster timer in Guiding Lands and Expeditions infinite. This means that monsters will not leave by themselves."

Situational but highly useful considering you will spend a big chunk of time in Guiding Lands. Monsters can still "leave" by getting replaced by new ones, but otherwise can't leave in the middle of the hunt and cause boundless frustration. ᶦⁿ ᵒᵗʰᵉʳ ⁿᵉʷˢ, ᵇᵃⁿᶦˢʰ ᵇᵃˡˡ ᵘˢᵃᵍᵉ ʷᵉⁿᵗ ᵘᵖ ᵇʸ ¹⁰⁰⁰%

Snow Layering Removal[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes the snow effect when you roll/walk in Seliana and the Hoarfrost Reach"

With this mod, you can admire your superior taste in fashion without getting permanent snow on your clothes! It also lets you see your character easier, since snow can hinder visibility of your character to some extent.

Honorable Mentions (Cont. Pt. 1)

Concise Hunting Horn Effect Names (Iceborne)[www.nexusmods.com]

"A mod to shorten buff/effect names for Hunting Horn melodies. The mod also affects the small pop-ups when someone uses a Horn melody too, making those shorter like the song names. Useful for anyone as long as at least one person is using the HH in your team."

Because seeing "Deflected Attack Prevention" or "Self-improvement" covering half of your screen is too mainstream. ʷʰʸ ᵗʰᵉ ʰᵉˡˡ ᵈᶦᵈ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵍˢ ˢᵒ ˡᵒⁿᵍ ᵇʸ ᵈᵉᶠᵃᵘˡᵗ ᵃⁿʸʷᵃʸ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᵗᵃᵏᵉ ˢᵒ ᵐᵘᶜʰ ˢᵖᵃᶜᵉ ᶦᵗ'ˢ ᵃᵇˢᵘʳᵈ

Health Notes[www.nexusmods.com]

"Ingame monster health notifications. This mod will show ingame notification messages when monsters reach health thresholds. The thresholds and messages are configurable, but by default they show up at around 50, 25, and 10% health."

This one is recommended if you don't want to use an overlay. It will let you get a grasp on how injured a monster is. I use an overlay myself, but still wanted to mention this mod. This plugin still has the delays an overlay has, so using both an overlay and this mod together is fairly pointless.

Elder's Recess Area 15 Nergi's Nest Ceiling Falling Spikes Removal[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes the falling spikes/rocks in area 15 on Elder's Recess"

Because no one likes those. Who designed waves of perpetually falling spikes anyway? Get the Tundra one as well (it's in the same mod page). The Guiding Lands is unbearable enough with or without falling spikes anyway. Might as well reduce the amount of suffering since you'll spend quite some time there.

Decoration Drop Rate Overhaul[www.nexusmods.com]

"A complete redesign of decoration drop rates. It changes the underlying philosophy of how the tables work and compeltely reweights [sic] every single gem and gemstone rates" - by AsteriskAmpersand

This mod fixes the atrociously-designed decoration system without being significantly cheaty. It rebalances the rarity of drops from higher rarity Feystones. That means the ultra-rare decorations are slightly easier to get, since the best Feystones drop less trash on average now.

Half of the decoration loot table is basically garbage after the release of Iceborne due to the sheer amount of useless dual-decorations, so that doesn't help either. This mod won't give you a big advantage, but it should still cut down the frustration to some extent when grinding for decorations.

Works alongside the next mod.

Modern Decoration System Iceborne Edition[www.nexusmods.com]

"Even though Monster Hunter World is one of my favorite games of all time, it most definitely is not perfect by any means. The whole decorations system is way too anti-player, even for Monster Hunter. If you think the same way, consider writing the below."

This mod balances the drop tables of melding tickets, adds them to various reward tables so they aren't stupidly rare and alters bounty rewards so they give other things than fistfuls of Armor Spheres. I think it synergizes well with the previous mod, so I recommend using them together.

Works alongside the previous mod.

Camera Distance Change for Iceborne[www.nexusmods.com]

"Updated Camera Distance for MHW IB

This mod replaces the Close value to be something far away."

Even the farthest option is too close for comfort, so this should help with the camera distance. Remember to pick Close when using the mod to apply it.

True Weapon Damage Values[www.nexusmods.com]

"Show unbloated weapon damage in game menus"

This mod reveals the lies behind Capcom's spaghetti code by unbloating the Attack and Elemental Attack values. Be wary that it will confuse you or others when speaking about values if you use this mod. True values are much lower and condensed in a sense, so they will appear significantly lower than the game initially tells you.

...ʸᵒᵘ ʷᶦˡˡ ᵏⁿᵒʷ ᵗʰᵉ ᵗʳᵘᵗʰ, ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᵗʳᵘᵗʰ ʷᶦˡˡ ˢᵉᵗ ʸᵒᵘ ᶠʳᵉᵉ

Disable Profanity Filter[www.nexusmods.com]

"Simply disable the game's profanity filter. Works for any language."

An ancient but still functional mod I used to use myself. It only removes the filter for yourself and if other people don't use it, their censored stuff is censored on your end too, but it's still worth getting if you play with the same people and want to swear/talk without restraints.

I saw the list of censored words myself and damn Capcom didn't only cover a lot of words, they also got a lot of irrelevant stuff in the list that aren't profanity. Some of the stuff they censored is so damn obscure.

These sorts of filters never work out anyway.

Endemic Quality (Iceborne Edition)[www.nexusmods.com]

"100% spawn rate for Rare Endemic Creatures. Restriction on conditions still apply i.e. Rain, Sunny, etc."

I get why rare critters spawn under certain conditions, but it doesn't make sense when they added another layer of RNG just to make them "rare". You see, the rare critters may still not spawn even under the right conditions ᶠᵒʳ ˢᵒᵐᵉ ᵘⁿᵍᵒᵈˡʸ ʳᵉᵃˢᵒⁿ. This mod makes them spawn as long as the conditions are met.

No Fog When Elders Spawn in Ancient Forest/Wildspire Waste/Coral Highlands/Elder Recess/Hoarfrost Reach[www.nexusmods.com]

Get all of them. The fog butchers performance and is headache-inducing because of the way it affects your screen. Seriously, who thought that it was a good idea to give your screen a flashing grey or blue overlay every few seconds for as long as an Elder is on the map you are on? There are, like, two or three other ways to figure it out!

No Fog in the Rotten Valley 2.0[www.nexusmods.com]

No clue why the author did this one separately (should have added it to the main mod). I actually forgot to add this one to the list despite having it myself but better late than never, eh?

No Fog when Elders Spawn in the Guiding Lands 3.0[www.nexusmods.com]

Same reason as above ones. Not to mention, Guiding Lands already runs like crap, so the fog does not help.

Due to an unknown issue that will probably never get fixed, one or more of the "Remove FOG" mods cause issues with certain Kushala Daora quests (ex: "The Storm Brings the Unexpected"). If you get a crash right after you depart for a specific quest, remove the mods and do the quest without the them.

Skippable Cutscenes[www.nexusmods.com]

"Allows skipping cutscenes through button press." - By AsteriskAmpersand

Yet another mod from my favorite modder, AsteriskAmpersand! This time, he bestows upon us an absolute treasure: the ability to skip cutscenes! It was a matter of time until someone solved one of the larger issues of the game. Now you can skip any cutscene!

ᴵ'ᵐ ˢᵒʳʳʸ ᴰᵃᶦˢᵘᵏᵉ ᴵᶜʰᶦʰᵃʳᵃ. ᴵ'ᵐ ˢᵒʳʳʸ ᴿʸᵒᶻᵒ ᵀˢᵘʲᶦᵐᵒᵗᵒ. ᴵ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᵘᵗˢᶜᵉⁿᵉˢ ᵇᵘᵗ ʸᵒᵘ ˢʰᵒᵘˡᵈⁿ'ᵗ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᶠᵒʳᶜᵉᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵘⁿᶦᵗʸ ᵗᵒ ᵉᵛᵉⁿᵗᵘᵃˡˡʸ ᵒᵛᵉʳᶜᵒᵐᵉ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᶠᵃᵘˡᵗʸ ᵈᵉˢᶦᵍⁿ ᶜʰᵒᶦᶜᵉ ᵒⁿᵉ ʷᵃʸ ᵒʳ ᵃⁿᵒᵗʰᵉʳ

Longsword Spirit Gauge Indicator[www.nexusmods.com]

"A mod adding an indicator to the Spirit Gauge that shows when it's possible to perform the Spirit Roundslash or an entire Spirit combo."

You won't really need this if you always max out your gauge, but it will still help if you think that you miss a combo often due to the gauge decay.

Honorable Mentions (Cont. Pt. 2)

No Grind Guiding Lands[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes the more egregious grinding factors from the guiding land gathering and mining tables. Massively lowers the rate of Coal and Research Point Items while raising the number [of] items mined from the giant nodes."

I don't know how I forgot to mention this one in the previous sections. Anyway, better late than never. This mod balances the whole Grinding Lands loot system for the gathering spots and makes it an overall better experience. The mod considerably reduces the chances of Coal and Research Point items, so keep that part in mind while using it.

Nerf Defender Armor and Weapons (to the ground)[www.nexusmods.com]

"Nerf defender armor and weapons to the ground
For new players who want to experience true vanilla base game"

Because you probably should not use that broken set in your first playthrough. Only use this mod if you want to enjoy vanilla base game but cannot resist using defender because of their great (and broken) stats. ᵈᵉᶠᵉⁿᵈᵉʳ ˢᵗᵘᶠᶠ ʷᵃˢ ᵃ ᵐᶦˢᵗᵃᵏᵉ ᵃⁿʸʷᵃʸ

Alternatively, you can use the save editor to permanently delete the said gear. You can still craft the Defender weapons, but Guardian armor parts are gone for good if you "uncraft" them via the save editor.

Only Kjarr from Incandescent[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes "Taroth" weapons from the Incandescent drop chance so that they only drop "Kjarr" weapons."

Very useful since Kjarr weapons are the go-to if you plan on making high-end elemental builds for endgame content. Mind that some Taroth weapons can be considered useful for some situations or builds (like Sleep and Paralysis ones). This mod makes Incandescent loot to drop only Kjarr weaponry. Triggering the Fury mode of Kulve Taroth rewards you with Incandescent loot, so Kjarr Alchemy isn't the only way to get what you want (though it's arguably faster and more consistent).

Due to the removal of Taroth weapons from the pool, the chances of you getting a Kjarr weapon got roughly tripled (37% vs 100%). Mind that you might still not get what you want, but at least it will take significantly fewer attempts.

You can also use Melding to get the weapons too, since the mod affects all Incandescent Weapons.

RegionSet[www.nexusmods.com]

"Adjust guiding lands level back up"

If you use this mod, you won't need to use the Save Editor to uncap the levels. This mod lets you set the region levels to the highest you have achieved before. Best part? You can do it in the game instead of using a tool outside of the game.

Mind that you can't lower your region levels to 1 with this mod because it greys out the ability to increase it again. That means the lowest you can go is 2 with this mod.

Decorations Save Exporter[www.nexusmods.com]

"Exports your decorations from your save file to two formats:

1. Honey Hunter
2. MHW Wiki DB

If you use any set builders like Honey Hunter or MHW Wiki DB, they provide an option to enter in your owned decorations, and then you can build sets using only decorations you have currently."

A very handy tool, especially after HoneyHunters' build maker disappeared without a trace from its site. It should still help if you use the other option.

Seliana Smooth Smithy[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes the Pause / Teleport when going to the smithy from the Gathering Hub in Seliana"

Because Capcom didn't need to use the area loading tricks on PC for the most part, since even the average gaming PC can render an extra room while you are on another section of the map. They could have loaded the entire Seliana region on PC without any issues if they wanted.

This mod lets you sprint right to the smithy without having to wait for the "loading screen disguised as an animation/cutscene" to finish.

Forever Festival Redux[www.nexusmods.com]

"When you don't want to wait 2 weeks for your favorite festival, or want a festival back to back, or want to alternate every week. Look no further!!!"

Because waiting several weeks for a festival to arrive is getting way too mainstream. Unfortunately, it only works when you are connected to the internet due to the game having to check the time online in order to determine which festival it should load.

The main reason I recommend this mod is a bit more personal, however. There's an option to disable all festivals and I'll surely be using that for a long time. ᴵ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵏ ᴵ'ˡˡ ᵐᶦˢˢ ᵗʰᵉ ᶠᵉˢᵗᶦᵛᵃˡ ᵐᵘˢᶦᶜˢ

Guiding Lands Streamlined Bone and Coal Gathering Animations[www.nexusmods.com]

"Changes the special/rare gathering animation of some bones/coal in the guiding lands to the normal animation."

Because we didn't need to endure the entire "Ooooh, rare item! Nice!" animation half a dozen times in a row per gathering spot for what is essentially the common items of Guiding Lands. This mod will save you some time and sanity by shortening the gathering animation by performing the default one.

Gunner Defense Rework[www.nexusmods.com]

"Redefines the gunner defense penalty curving so that it handles extreme values better"

"The gunner defense penalty was first introduced in base game. The way it operates and how the curve is related to the blademaster damage curve for similar values made sense for values within the parameters defined there. With Iceborne there was no revision of the system but values got more extreme. Finally with the Fatalis updates, there's a considerable departure between values involved in the formula, to the point it's not functioning within it's intended range. A problem of scaling difficulty just by inflating numbers in both attack and defense but not paying attention to the structure of the underlying formula.

This mod aims to correct this by applying a curve modifier to the gunner defense penalty so it's dependent on monster attack values and scales accordingly to avoid the extreme value distortions that occur on post-game content." - AsteriskAmpersand

In case Asterisk's explanation was too hard to decipher, my dear reader, let me explain. When using a ranged weapon, you take more damage from physical attacks and less damage from elemental attacks. While the ingame descriptions don't mention it in these specific names, they are commonly known as "Gunner" and "Blademaster" weapon classes, due to their names and functionality in older titles.

There is a gigantic oversight in this system, however. All attacks mainly consist of physical damage, even if some of them are supposed to be mostly elemental at a glance. That means even a fireball deals more physical damage than elemental damage. Now, how is that related to this mod? In Iceborne, the amount of damage you can take per attack was drastically increased while the "Gunner defense penalty curve" wasn't adjusted to handle the extremely high damage values. Simply put: Some attacks that delete your entire health bar are not meant to do that, if the curve formula was calibrated for the expansion's higher values.

TL;DR: Gunner defense penalty now works as originally intended, thanks to ᵐʸ ᶠᵃᵛᵒʳᶦᵗᵉ ᵐᵒᵈᵈᵉʳ AsteriskAmpersand. While this mod alters a core game mechanic in a way that can give the player an advantage, it's a fix that solves an unintended issue that was an oversight to begin with. Thus, this mod rightfully belongs under this section without a shred of doubt. ᴾˡᵃʸᶦⁿᵍ ʳᵃⁿᵍᵉᵈ ᵃᵍᵃᶦⁿˢᵗ ᶠᵃᵗᵃˡᶦˢ ᶦˢ ˢˡᶦᵍʰᵗˡʸ ˡᵉˢˢ ˢᵘᶦᶜᶦᵈᵃˡ ⁿᵒʷ

Honorable Mentions (Cont. Pt. 3)

Reduced WSB Blast and Smoke Effects[www.nexusmods.com]

"Reduces the size of the smoke, blast, and some of the particle effects coming from the Wyrmstake Blast with the aim to improve graphical performance especially in a multiplayer gunlance party."

Highly recommended, because having your FPS dip by a relatively high two-digit number is not cool. We seriously need proper options for some stuff like effects but Capcom moved on already, so I guess we got mods to fix what they never implemented instead. This mod adjusts the intensity of certain effects (like explosions, explosions and explosions) of Gunlances. ᴰᶦᵈ ᴵ ᵐᵉⁿᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᶦᵗ ᵃˡˢᵒ ᵈᵉᶜʳᵉᵃˢᵉˢ ᵗʰᵉ ᶦⁿᵗᵉⁿˢᶦᵗʸ ᵒᶠ ᵉˣᵖˡᵒˢᶦᵒⁿˢ ᵃˢ ʷᵉˡˡ

If you ever played in a party where everyone was using the angry explode-y stick, you probably know the pain.

Multiplayer Damage Numbers[www.nexusmods.com]

"A mod to display the damage numbers of other people in multiplayer."

This little plugin mod lets you see your party mates' damage numbers on your own screen, just like your own damage numbers. However, due to how damage calculation is handled by the game, you can't see the numbers (apart from your own, of course) if you are not the host of the quest.

The damage numbers are color-coded as a bonus, to let you see who is doing what. Player 2 is designated gloomy blue; Player 3's is piss yellow and finally, Player 4's is grass green. Whoever joined first is designated Player 2, 2nd being Player 3 and 3rd being Player 4. You are always in Player 1 slot if you are hosting a quest, after all.

This mod should give you a general grasp on how your mates are performing. As usual, don't go after anyone if they are not dealing enough damage to carry their own weight in a hunt. Give them some advice on how to improve their playstyle, armor or weapons instead. That sounds much cooler than just harassing them, you know. Just be reasonable, and we are cool.

Better Palico AI[www.nexusmods.com]

"Smart and less disturbing Cats. Help you more and do no harm."

Simply put, this mod makes your Palico save your ass more often, while being less annoying in terms of the automatic tool usage.

The other "Smart Palico Fix" under Cheaty Mods makes them spam their abilities (especially the Coral Sonicgong), so I classified that as cheating due to that. This mod is a big upgrade compared to the other one, and it comes with multiple options you can choose from. Needless to say, it earned its spot under this section by actually fixing the Palico AI without breaking it in the process.

Easier to See Slinger Ammo Gathering Spots[www.nexusmods.com]

"Makes Slinger AMMO gathering spots glow green (Scatternuts, Crystal Burst, Stones, Torch Pods)"

This mod marks all slinger ammo sources by changing their textures to be tinted a rich uranium green. Because they sometimes do blend in way better than they should. Will also let you find out about slinger ammo spots that you never knew about, since it highlights all of them, no matter where they are.

Better Skill Descriptions (English)[www.nexusmods.com]

"This mod aims to improve the descriptions of skills."

A brilliant mod I would have made myself a while ago if I wasn't so damn lazy after the success of Descriptive Meal Skills (Iceborne). Now, jokes aside, this mod obliterates the vagueness of the game by making every single skill list its full effects, including percentages, durations, bonuses, maluses, and activation conditions. Honestly, any mod that makes the experience less obscure for this game is an instant winner in my eyes. This one increases clarity vastly by making one of the core mechanics of the game actually tell you what it does in great detail. What else can we even ask for, at this point?

This mod should be compatible with other text-altering mods, unless they use the same files. I don't recall any other mods that were using skill-related text files (that I listed in this guide), but I suspect my "Remove Felyne Puns (Updated)" might be using them to remove some puns. Just overwrite the files if that's the case (while prioritizing this mod's files). Should work out fine.

Remove Monster Roar Blur[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes most monster's roar (weak and strong) blur distortion effect."

I guess I never noticed roar blur somehow, but this should save you a headache or two for monsters that might bug out and spam roars back to back.

Visual and Sound Mods

This section includes visual mods along sound effect swapping/enhancing ones I have personally tested and use (for the most part). These mods are not exactly essential, but I still recommend them.

MHW Costume Armor (Transmog)[www.nexusmods.com]

"Swap the visuals of your armor to any other you like while keeping the stats
Changes can be seen by others online"

This tool was priceless when I wanted that cool [Sealed Dragon Cloth Alpha+] as layered before they added it to the list. All functional armor sets can be made into layered counterparts now (given that you got the materials). You can still swap it out with this tool without having to craft them, though.

This tool became somewhat redundant after Capcom added all armor sets as layered (except Pre-order or Deluxe ones). However, you can still use it to equip layered armor you don't own. Even the pre-order sets.

Cuter Handler Face Model (Post-Iceborne) aka Make Handler Cuter Again[www.nexusmods.com]

"Cuter Handler face and hair models. Optional textures. For post-Iceborne. Supports all current costumes."

We may still hate her, but at least she's much prettier now.

Handler Portrait Replacement (Pretty Handler)[www.nexusmods.com]

"This mod replaces the handler's portrait with another image."

She looks even worse in the small "talking" portrait near the text she spouts. This fixes that. Only downside is it's not animated. Still pretty decent despite that.

Static NPC Dialogue Face Portraits[www.nexusmods.com]

"Keeps the portraits of the talking NPCs during missions static."

Because they indeed do get distracting after you see them 10+ times. There is no lip-sync either, so it just ruins immersion as well.

This mod has optional files from the above mod that got some adjustments, so you don't have to merge them by hand.

Foot Bath NPC Swap[www.nexusmods.com]

"Swap the foot bath NPC to the couple(?) NPC on the back."

A useful mod, in case you don't like seeing the (relatively) unattractive woman using the foot bath right in front of the quest counter and would like to see a prettier alternative.

Blood EFX[www.nexusmods.com]

"Blood efx pack with optional elemental and critical efx
The weakspots are soft and juicy while the non-weakspots are hard and crunchy"

Because realism. Also affects how critical hits sound, so that's a plus as well.

Bloody Broken Parts[www.nexusmods.com]

"The color after destroy [sic] the parts was made like blood."

Because realism, again.

Louder 'Quest Posted' Sound[www.nexusmods.com]

"Replaces the 'posted a quest' sound with a classic MH sound, making it easier to hear."

The current sound cue blends in too well with background noise. This mod helps with that by replacing it with a more distinct sound cue from an older title.

Bowgun Sound Overhaul[www.nexusmods.com]

"Change the firing sound of the Heavy Bowgun and Light Bowgun."

A mod that makes LBG and HBG sound more realistic. They actually sound like proper firearms instead of airsoft guns now.

Behemoth Damage Numbers[www.nexusmods.com]

"Ever wanted other monsters to have the same damage font and style as the one you get in Behemoth's event quest?"

Always thought it'd be nice to have the Behemoth damage numbers in all hunts, but Capcom probably never thought about adding an option like that. This mod does exactly that by adding skill names and damage fonts for all damage in all hunts.

Remove Felyne Puns (Updated)[www.nexusmods.com]

"Update of an older mod. Normalizes puns to make it less physically painful. Compatible with Iceborne and updated for v15.11.00."

The puns get physically painful after a while. This is an update of an older mod by yours truly because a lot of text for content released after Shara Ishvalda was missing. Some puns make things harder to understand, especially if your English isn't great. Puns should add life and meaning to the dialogue, not take from it. ᵗʰᵉʸ ᵒᵛᵉʳᵈᶦᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᵖᵘⁿˢ ᵗᵇʰ

Classic Monster Hunter SFX Pack[www.nexusmods.com]

"Sound effects mod that replaces many sounds to their existing classic Monster Hunter equivalents. Menus, items, weapons, monsters, cooking & Poogie themes, hit sounds, and many other misc sounds!"

Recommended if you want to have some nostalgia with the older sound effects.

Invisible Slingers Complete Edition[www.nexusmods.com]

"Files to make all Slingers/Clutch claws invisible for ALL armors! Optional files available for invisible ammo too."

Recommended in case you hate the Clutch Claw and/or slinger ammo more than everyone else.

Polite Hunter[www.nexusmods.com]

"Makes the Hunter polite by replacing "Yes" with "Yes Please" and "No" with "No Thanks". Works for all prompts. Comes in 9 languages."

Does what it says by editing like 2 lines of text. ᵈᵃᵐⁿ ᴵ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ᵐᵃᵏᶦⁿᵍ ᵐᵒᵈˢ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ˡᵒˡ

May increase clarity in UI if you tend to misclick on prompts.

No More Fest Music in Seliana Gathering Hub (Remove Festival Music)[www.nexusmods.com]

"Replaces Seliana Gathering Hub Fest music with absolute silence so you don't have to listen to them way too many times. Only works for Seliana Gathering Hub as you might guess. Naturally, owning Iceborne is required."

I finally snapped and learned audio modding. The fests rotate every 2 weeks, with 2 weeks of no festivals between each other. This means that you will listen to the same fest musics for 2 weeks straight if you play regularly.

Somewhat redundant if you use "Forever Festival Redux" to just remove the festivals altogether. I still recommend this mod if you want to keep the festivals intact, but still want to silence the music.

EFX Nuke[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes most distracting/flashy EFX from the game but leaves ones that are useful to gameplay such as scoutflies, monster attacks, and item procs intact."

Improves performance to an extent. May clash with other effect mods if they alter the same files.

Critical Effect Intensity Reduced[www.nexusmods.com]

"Reduces how bright the critical effect is by percentage. Reduced to 50% or to 25% of the original Intensity."

This is better than the EFX Nuke because you can target one specific effect (in this case, the crit flashing effect) and keep the rest of the effects. Crit effects are known to decrease FPS, so this might help if you have issues but don't want to remove the effect altogether.

Less Annoying Player Voices[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes certain effects that are shared between voices like smelling, eating, and panting."

Pretty handy for people who are particularly disturbed by the said sounds. If you hate them, you can remove them via this mod.

Visual and Sound Mods (Cont. Pt. 1)

Switch Capcom Logo to Wallpaper of Your Choice[www.nexusmods.com]

"This mod changes the startup Capcom logo when the game launches to a wallpaper of your choice. Currently has 25 different options including the joke one. All used images are 1920x1080."

Seeing another mod which did this inspired me, so I started to learn some texture editing. The fruit of my suffering is this mod. It switches the startup Capcom logo into a wallpaper of your choice. You can make your own stuff as well. There are instructions in the forum post in the mod page.

The startup logo only appears for a second or so, but it's still better than seeing "C A P C O M ®" for the thousandth time.

Hunter Voice Volume Increase[www.nexusmods.com]

"Simply increases the volume of hunter voices."

Oddly enough, character voices blend too well into the background. This mod fixes that by making them 6 dB louder. While that number may seem small, it's actually a significant increase.

Active Skill Popup Removal[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes the annoying skill (de-)activation chat popup messages.
You're welcome, gunners and peak users."

In case you are extra-annoyed with the pop-up messages, this should help you by removing them. It even increases performance (apparently), since you don't have to load in several hundred activation/deactivation messages every time you look at the monster in a funny way.

Invisible Buff Aura Effect for Items and Skills[www.nexusmods.com]

"Makes the consumption flash and the uptime buff light aura/blur on item buffs and most skills invisible."

Does exactly what it says on the tin. It removes effects that are from buffs or persistent aura effects. A few of them are excluded (mainly blights and Safi's armor bonus effects), but still better than seeing all the distracting effects mid-combat. Probably slightly increases performance as well.

Cloudy Castle Schrade[www.nexusmods.com]

"Make castle Schrade cloudy, remove raining effects, possibly increase fps."

I love rain and I don't hunt Fatalis often, but it would be great if we had a chance to see something else than the performance-hog rain in Schrade. This fixes that. Will not affect others, of course.

No Carving Knife (Knives and Decorative Weapons)[www.nexusmods.com]

"Because there is no reason to keep it around if it's just going to clip into everything."

It's not like you will ever get to use the decorative stuff anyway. Optionally removes the carving knife as well.

Invisible Gunlance Shields[www.nexusmods.com]

"Overwrites all Gunlance shields and parts in the game to be invisible."

Not much to explain here. This mod makes all Gunlance shields invisible. May prove useful for some people. Now you don't have to see the clunky shield of your clunky weapon.

Modded UI and Icon Overhaul[www.nexusmods.com]

"This mod aims to improve or overhaul a ton of in-game icons.
status icons are now more understandable and monster icons have elemental weakness as well as support for the most popular unique monster mods."

This one is a good alternative for "Monster Weakness Icon Indicator for Iceborne (Hi-Res)". It also changes other various icons that belong to buffs and make them much easier to decipher. If you want to use the weakness icons mod and this one together, read the first comment under Posts. The author explained that you only need two files for the status/misc icons.

Waggish Korean Art Style Monster Icons[www.nexusmods.com]

"This is a humorous Korean folk painting style monster icon drawn by me. Download it when you're bored!"

A decent alternative to "Monster Weakness Icon Indicator for Iceborne (Hi-Res)" that is under Honorable Mentions. The icons are hand-drawn and the default version shows elemental weaknesses in the corner as well so if you don't want the vanilla icons you can get this one without having to lose the weakness icons.

Naturally, it's incompatible with "Monster Weakness Icon Indicator for Iceborne (Hi-Res)" mod since they use the exact same files to change the icons.

MHO Monster Weapon Ports[github.com]

"Ports the MHO weapons of several monsters present in World and Iceborne. Many of these weapons might be familiar to longtime MH fans."

I don't really know a whole lot about older titles' weapon designs, but I do know that this game's weapon designs suck because they made like 2 people work on the entire thing. This mod gets rid of the awful copy and pasted weapon designs that is originally in the game and fixes Capcom's bad design choices at the same time.

There is a side-effect, however. Kulve weapons become invisible while using this mod.

No More Quest Alert Music[www.nexusmods.com]

"No more FF14, Xeno, Zoral, Shara's anoying music playing in Astera, Gathering Hub and Seliana."

Because the themes get old after listening to them half a dozen times. May clash with other sound and/or music mods.

Just Silent Scoutflies[www.nexusmods.com]

"Silences scoutflies, nothing else."

In case the sound annoys you more than it is capable of.

Visually Friendly Scoutflies (Iceborne)[www.nexusmods.com]

"This mod reduces the density of the hunter's scoutflies and makes them less distracting. Works with Iceborne"

The scoutflies are overwhelmingly shiny and crowded, so this should help if you want to cull their numbers to reduce visual clutter.

Recommended to be used in tandem with Reduce or Remove Bloom.

Immersive Scoutflies[www.nexusmods.com]

"Stops the scoutflies from making things like gathering nodes glow while still maintaining tracking capabilities."

Honestly, I never was fond of the glowing gathering nodes signaling "Pick me up!" when I got near them. This mod removes the glowing effects on nodes while not affecting the scoutflies pointing at them.

It's compatible with Just Silent Scoutflies but NOT with Visually Friendly Scoutflies (Iceborne) unless you manually adjust it.

Hidden Weapons When Sheathed (Invisible on Back)[www.nexusmods.com]

"All weapons, quivers, etc, are invisible when sheathed."

Does what it says by displacing your sheathed weapon models a mile [sic] below you so you can no longer see them. Recommended if you are bothered by your gigantic weapon covering your entire screen while trying to see the monster.

Mute Palico Coral Horn in My House[www.nexusmods.com]

"Mute Coral Horn SFX when Palico uses his tool at your home. Now litsen to my house Music as you like."

Because it can drive you crazy over time if you hear your Palico practicing too much. This mod makes it really quiet, so you will only hear it if you mute all other sounds.

Easy-to-hear QUEST ACCEPT Sound[www.nexusmods.com]

"Louder Quest Accept SFX. In case you miss it in multiplayer."

An alternative to "Louder 'Quest Posted' Sound" above. This one simply makes the default sound louder instead of swapping it to a sound effect from an older title.

Visual and Sound Mods (Cont. Pt. 2)

Optimized Bow Charge Effect Color for Beginners RGB[www.nexusmods.com]

"Bow charge levels distinguished by colors (RGB) to help beginners tell which charge level they are at."

This will come in handy if you're not used to distinguishing the bow charge levels during intense combat. The colors will give you a better visual cue than the usual white flashing. Chances are, the average player won't need this, but it can still be helpful.

ⁿᵒʷ ʸᵒᵘ ᶜᵃⁿ ˢʰᵒʷ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵗʳᵘᵉ ᵍᵃᵐᵉʳ ˢᶦᵈᵉ ʷᶦᵗʰ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵈᵒᵖᵉ⁻ᵃˢˢ ᴿᴳᴮ ᵇᵒʷ

No Waist Lights[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes the lights attached to the waist armors. Recommended to use with No Player Light mod."

This one removes the lantern piece from all waist armors. Recommended if you don't like the dangly lanterns on your waist armor. Use with the mod below to remove the light as well.

Alternatively, you can also remove both decorative knives, carving knives and the lanterns by using the mod below.

No Waist Lights and No Knives[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes the lights and knives attached to the waist armors. Recommended to use with No Player Light mod. Optional files included."

Removes the lantern from all waist armor pieces, and everything else that is decorative alongside it. The author even adjusted some of the models so that they don't look out of place when these elements are removed! Pretty nifty stuff. You can finally remove ALL junk from ALL armor now.

Removes the carving knife, chest armor decorative swords/knives and waist piece decorative swords/knives. The ultimate clean look for your armor pieces!

No Player Light[www.nexusmods.com]

"Removes the fake light that emanates from the player's waist area."

This one removes the Scoutfly lantern light effect from all waist armor. Recommended to be used alongside one of the mods that removes the lantern models.

Critical EFX Colors[www.nexusmods.com]

"Critical efx colors"

The description provided by the author is fairly short but describes the mod well enough. In case you have no performance drops when there are a lot of critical effects on your screen, you can go even further with this mod and make the effect colorful so you can actually get start getting performance issues. I'm joking, of course. The mod looks great. Especially if you want to spice up your critical effects. Some even have two colors that flash consecutively!

Realistic LUT - Not Need ReShade[www.nexusmods.com]

"Won't affect HUD. Stronger light and dark contrasts. Darker nights, cleaner colouring. All in native game. It wont affect HUD."

In case ReShade is causing you issues or you don't want to figure out how to make it work, you can just use this mod instead to change how the game looks from the ground up! Makes the game look less washed-out and bland, since most of the overlays that serve nothing but mess up the graphics seem to be toned down greatly.

Muted IG Triple Up Attack SFX[www.nexusmods.com]

"Mutes the sound effect that plays everytime you attack with the insect glaive when you have the triple extract buff up."

Does what it says on the tin and mutes the triple buff attack effect. Recommended if you are disturbed by it.

Mod author didn't pack the mod in NativePC directly, so make sure you extract this one into NativePC (in game directory) instead of where the game's exe is.

No More Fest Music in Astera Gathering Hub (Remove Festival Music)[www.nexusmods.com]

"Replaces Astera Gathering Hub Fest music with absolute silence so you don't have to listen to them way too many times. Only works for Astera Gathering Hub as the title suggests. Shouldn't require Iceborne. Will most likely NOT clash with mods that change Final Fantasy or Shara Ishvalda themes."

Yet another mod from yours truly. This time, it was a request of a stranger, but since it takes almost no skill and time to replace a music track with silence (since I don't have to loop it properly), I decided to stop being lazy and did it. In case you like sticking around in Astera Gathering Hub a little too much, this mod should save your sanity.

You can even pick and choose which fest theme you want to mute, since I packed all of them individually. It should be compatible with most other music/sound mods, as a bonus. The odds of another mod using the same files are low due to how these ones are packed. Some are even packed alone, for some reason.

Cheaty Mods

This section includes mods that can give you an unfair advantage or alter the way you play significantly. These mods may also affect other people's experiences, so use them responsibly. The mods in this section may objectively be useful, but due to their nature of altering the mechanics/gameplay in ways the developers never intended, they end up in here.

Automatic Steamworks - 100 Percent Success Rate[www.nexusmods.com]

"*100% Success Rate* Reads the game memory for the "expected" order of the Steamworks Mini game and then plays that sequence. Auto-Restarts the Game if you have fuel."

While the main reason I recommend this is because the minigame is too boring to play manually, it lets you do 100% accurate runs and waste no fuel, time or physical energy. It still counts as cheating since it circumvents player input and error, but hey, we'll see far worse entries down the line so this isn't as bad as you might think!

Infinite Or Longer Reach Clutch Claw[www.nexusmods.com]

"Clutch claw now has infinite range. Optional file for only 2x range."

I think the default range is too damn limited. Infinite would be overdoing it, but I won't judge you if you decide to use it. This mod would have been in "Honorable Mentions" if it wasn't considered cheaty.

While testing this mod, I was told by my observant veteran friends that it looks a bit janky when I clutch on monsters. So it is safe to say that other people can tell what is up if they are paying attention.

Infinite or Longer Tenderize[www.nexusmods.com]

"This mod changes the time tenderizes from 180* seconds to infinite seconds. There is a 2x time tenderize meaning that the normal 180* seconds is doubled to 360* seconds, or 6* minutes."

Not exactly cheaty if you ask me, but it will somewhat affect your DPS (because you have to open wounds less frequently which gives you more time to attack) so this mod ends up in this section. Still highly recommended, though. I'm sure this mod was priceless when wound time was 90 seconds.

As odd as it sounds, it's lore-friendly to an extent. Elder Dragons (apart from a few exceptions like Nergigante) regenerate very slowly because of their immense power as far as I'm aware. [ᶜᶦᵗᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ ⁿᵉᵉᵈᵉᵈ]

*Mod author forgot to change the numbers in the description, so I fixed them.

Extended Item Buff - Song - Mantle Durations[www.nexusmods.com]

"As the title says, increases the duration of item buffs and (optionally) songs."

If you are short on consumables and want to get the most out of them, this mod is for you.

ᴴᵉʸ, ᴵ ʷᵒⁿ'ᵗ ʲᵘᵈᵍᵉ ʸᵒᵘ ᶦᶠ ʸᵒᵘ ᵘˢᵉ ᵒᵗʰᵉʳ ᵈᵘʳᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᵉˣᵗᵉⁿᵈᵉʳˢ ᵗʰᵒᵘᵍʰ. ᴶᵘˢᵗ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᶠˡᵉˣ ᵃʳᵒᵘⁿᵈ ʷᶦᵗʰ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᵘⁿˡᶦᵐᶦᵗᵉᵈ ᵀᵉᵐᵖᵒʳᵃˡ ᴹᵃⁿᵗˡᵉ ᵉʰ?

Remove Hitlag for All Weapons[www.nexusmods.com]

"Update of an outdated mod, removes hitlag for all weapons with instructions on how to only affect certain weapons."

All weapons (save for ranged) have a slight delay when an attack connects (which is called "hitlag"). This delay is to make the player feel like they hit something tough. As much as I like the mechanic and how it looks, some animations have a hitlag that is just plain too long.

This mod removes hitlag, so you cut through monsters like butter now. Removing hitlag lets you have more control in general because you aren't delayed a few hundred milliseconds for all attacks. It probably affects DPS to a negligible degree since it doesn't affect damage but gives a little more control over attacks.

Farmable Useful Item[www.nexusmods.com]

"Replace some of the objects in the botanical garden with more useful objects, like Arena's coins, Melding Tickets, Golden Egg..."

You can now cultivate truly useful items instead of trash now. Botanical Research's garden gets somewhat outdated at endgame, unless you are inhaling the potions.

It even lets you farm Pure Dracolites which are normally unobtainable (but functional) by normal means. ʷʰʸ ᶦˢ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ ⁿᵒ ᴬᵀ ˢᵃᶠᶦ ᵃⁿʸʷᵃʸ

Dual Blades Longer Buff Durations[www.nexusmods.com]

Long Sword Longer Buff Durations[www.nexusmods.com]

Switch Axe Longer Buff Durations[www.nexusmods.com]

Charge Blade Longer Buff Durations[www.nexusmods.com]

Insect Glaive Longer Buff Durations[www.nexusmods.com]

My own duration mods here. I don't really need or use them myself but some variants (notably CB and SA ones) were never made by other people despite it being a simple value edit, so I went and made these mods by altering a bunch of numbers. Since I made like 2, I went and completed the set by altering other weapons, because why not?

(Almost) Tradable Everything to Other Players[www.nexusmods.com]

"Makes (almost) all items tradable to other players in the gathering hub by making the item rarity 1."

This is a very interesting one. It works even if the receiver doesn't use the mod. It's a bit awkward to use because of how MHW works, but it's still very useful if your friend needs one (or more) extra Mantle or Ticket while it's unavailable/hard to get. Sadly, you can't trade Decorations because the bag can't hold Decorations.

This mod naturally ends up in this section because the devs never intended the player to trade higher rarity materials with other players for whatever reason.

Best used alongside the mod below, so you can actually put materials in your pouch to hand them over to someone else. Material storage is different, and you can't take any of those items in your pouch directly, but you can buy into your pouch with a shop mod, so you can hand the items over that way.

MHW Shop List Editor[www.nexusmods.com]

"Tool for creating custom shop list files for use in Monster Hunter World"

I don't really need to explain this one, but here we go. This mod lets you create your own custom shop lists and just make the game load whatever items you put on the list. By itself, it's probably only useful for buying stuff you require a few (or more) extra more of, but it really shines when used alongside the mod above.

Personally, I used this one a few times to restock my consumable stash. I have too much zenny anyway, so I guess I have use for money now. ʷʰᵃᵗ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ᶦˢ ᵐᵒⁿᵉʸ ᶦᶠ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ ᶦˢ ⁿᵒᵗʰᶦⁿᵍ ᵗᵒ ˢᵖᵉⁿᵈ ᶦᵗ ᵒⁿ ᵃⁿʸʷᵃʸ

Crafting Material Reduce v15.11.01 Compatible[www.nexusmods.com]

"This MOD reduce materials needed in crafting armor/jewel/weapon, highly recommended for those who feel grind to collect materials but don‘t want to cheat too much."

This mod slightly reduces the amount of materials required so it's easier to craft armor sets, weapons and decorations.

Asterisk x10 and x5 Research Points Cheat[www.nexusmods.com]

"Multiplies your research points gain by 5 or by 10."

You can use this mod to make it a little easier to stack some points for later usage. It's not like it'd break the game just because you got more Research Points (since you still need Zenny as well), but this mod obviously belongs here since it's textbook cheating.

Cheaty Mods (Cont. Pt. 1)

Unlock All Layered Armors[www.nexusmods.com]

"Unlock all layered armors as soon as you unlock the layered armor feature."

Now, I'll be honest. I love unlocking layered armors and collecting them myself, but the game does not even list all craftable layered armors until you get the "core" material required. What this mod exactly does is: It makes the whole layered armor list visible and gives you three options (just reveal, no material crafting or completely free crafting). I'll probably use the "just reveal the bloody list" version to see and collect what I missed, but hey, I won't judge you if you use other versions ᵃˢ ᵘˢᵘᵃˡ.

Interestingly, it even lets you see and craft uncraftable layered armor sets like Samurai or Yukumo. They don't end up in your inventory, but you can equip them directly if you craft them, which in turn lets you save them as a layered armor preset (which then can be used to wear the set despite not owning it by equipping the said set). ᴵ ʳᵉᵃˡˡʸ ʷᵒⁿᵈᵉʳ ʷʰᵃᵗ ᶜᵃᵖᶜᵒᵐ ʷᵒᵘˡᵈ ˢᵃʸ ᶦᶠ ᵗʰᵉʸ ˡᵉᵃʳⁿᵉᵈ ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ ᵗʰᶦˢ ˢʰᶦᵗ ˡᵒˡ

This mod would have been under some Honorable Mentions section above if it didn't include optional free crafting versions in the same page.

All Palico Armors Treated Equally[www.nexusmods.com]

"Do you feel like you really love the outlook of a certain set of armor for your little partner but with low defense, so you have to choose another ugly set for better surviving? Now with this mod, defense and element resistance of all palico armors are set as the same, you can finally feel free to choose the one you like."

It's only cheating if you use it before you get top-tier armor for your Palico. It still ends up in this section because of its potential to be used as a cheat. ᵉⁿᵈᵍᵃᵐᵉ ᶦˢ ᶠᵃˢʰᶦᵒⁿ ᵃⁿᵈ ᶜᵃᵖᶜᵒᵐ ᶠᵒʳᵍᵒᵗ ᵗᵒ ᵍᶦᵛᵉ ᵘˢ ˡᵃʸᵉʳᵉᵈ ᵖᵃˡᶦᶜᵒ ᵍᵉᵃʳ

Palico MR Weapons Treated Equally[www.nexusmods.com]

"MR Palico weapons will all use similar stats so you can give your palico whichever weapons you like more."

Finally, since the previous author never worked on it, someone else did. Now you can hand any weapon to your Palico and look cool while it loses no tactical advantage!

Cheaty because of the same reasons. If you use it before you get the best stuff, it can boost you.

Remove Claw Stagger and Restore Weakness Exploit[www.nexusmods.com]

"Pure vanilla MHWorld experience (for the most part).
Remove claw stagger. And Weakness Exploit now no longer require tenderizing to get 15%/30%/50% affinity bonus."

In case you want to have pre-Iceborne Weakness Exploit (WEX), this mod is for you. It does what "Remove Clagger Nothing Else" does but also has a file that makes WEX work the way it used to. Cheaty for obvious reasons, but priceless if you want the authentic base game experience that wasn't changed by the expansion.

WARNING: While using this mod, you can't complete "Learning the Clutch" quest due to your attacks not dealing any claw stagger. The only way to complete the quest is to remove the mod before doing it and (optionally) add it back again.

Craftable Throwing Knifes[www.nexusmods.com]

"Sleep, poison, para and tranq knifes can be crafted, stored and used as regular items."

This one ends up here only because devs never wanted us ᵗᵒ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵍˢ -AHEM- I mean, it was never intended for us to carry throwing knives for some reason. This mod lets you use them by making them craftable. According to my tests so far, they are not taken back after you finish a quest. I didn't try it for quests that provide knives in the Supply Box but I assume those don't take the crafted ones either.

I can finally use tranq without having to get close and get flinched by others.

Free Everything[www.nexusmods.com]

"Combined all my free mods & some unreleased free mods of mine. Includes free armor, layered armor, charms, augments, custom augments, deliveries, layered weapons, palico armor, palico weapons, pendants, weapons, melder, shop, and Safi upgrades. Zenny/RP no longer required. Optional files for the seperate [sic] mods."

Everything is 100% off! What a sale! Especially useful if you are coming over from the console version. Should help when restoring progress if you lost a save too.

Increased Trap Capacity[www.nexusmods.com]

"Increases the max capacity of Shock and Pitfall Traps and reduces the amount of Trap Tools in exchange."

Recommended in case you like capturing everything (like me) and hate restocking. Might prove useful for Grinding Lands runs where capturing gives more EXP as well.

Fand's Smart Palico Fix[www.nexusmods.com]

"Addresses an issue in Capcom's flawed game design where palicos were intentionally made stupid."

What can I say? Palicos are stupid and Capcom made them worse. This fixes that. The cat WILL help you IF it checks on you while you are immobilized. No more RNG in the AI.

One small issue, however. This mod makes your Palico spam whatever tool they have without much of a pause. I realized this when my Palico wouldn't stop using the gong (and the horn as well) which staggers monsters every 10-20 seconds or so. My Palico also didn't use melee attacks often enough to inflict ailments consistently (unlike before), so keep that part in mind as well.

Craftable Kulve Taroth (R6-R8) Weapons (Kulve Taroth Crafting)[www.nexusmods.com]

"Craftable Kulve Taroth Weapons. Doesn't remove or prevent crafting anything else."

Ah! Now, that's nostalgic. I remember using this mod way before Iceborne was even announced so I could get the last few "usable" weapons from Kulve Taroth. Good ol' days.

This mod lets you craft Kulve Taroth gear in the Smithy for a very low cost (a single Kulve Taroth Golden Shell per item). Recommended if you want or need a shortcut when obtaining KT loot. Of course you can just use the melding mod instead but this one lets you get what you want directly.

If the mod causes any issues (like the inability to upgrade KT weapons), remove the mod and upgrade that way.

Charms Unlocked and Free[www.nexusmods.com]

"All charms unlocked right away and free, contains optional files for only free charms or cheaper charms, and also contains patches for my Layered Armor Unlocked and Free mod. Enjoy!"

This mod lets you reveal the entire list for charms and craft them for either a very low cost or completely free. I kind of wish it also had a "reveal all charms" option without the cheaty stuff, but it's still a good mod if you just want to craft/ugprade a charm and didn't get the material for it due to questionable RNG.

All Monster Drops Increased[www.nexusmods.com]

"Increases the drops of all large monsters"

This mod makes carved loot reward you significantly more items per carve than usual. Should cut the grind down a little if that's what you're looking for. Mind that you still have to deal with the RNG, but the grinding will still be shorter than the "intended" amount if you use this mod. Still have to get lucky with the rarer stuff, though.

Apparently, it affects other material sources like Plunderblade loot and Bandit Mantle's shinies as well. Nifty stuff, I admit.

Current rates (for default version) are:
Commons: 5x
Uncommons: 3x
Rares: 2x

Cheaty Mods (Cont. Pt. 2)

More Wedge Beetles (Iceborne Edition)[www.nexusmods.com]

"Adds Wedge Beetles in locations they should have been for easy of travel."

Because some spots really should have had one of those. Shortens travel time, at the cost of making you look like you are teleporting on other people's screens.

Recommended to be used when playing alone or with friends who also have the mod, so you don't teleport up ledges on other people's screens and cause people to question you.

QoL Fast Travel[www.nexusmods.com]

"Adds wingdrake posts to strategic locations"

Because running from one end of the map to the other is too mainstream. Honestly, this mod would be under Honorable Mentions if I wasn't trying to be objective here. I wish we had unlockable wingdrake posts by default.

Recommended to be used with friends or when alone, since just like More Wedge Beetles, this mod (most probably) makes you look like you are teleporting to somewhere else on the map. That's just how the multiplayer syncs player movement, so I wouldn't be surprised.

Crown Size Mods

These mods get their own section because of their importance in my eyes. Personally, I hate grinding for an achievement, especially if the achievement in question does not offer a challenge in any form. Achievements should offer a reasonable challenge (big or small) and RNG achievements are literal dice rolls that you might get in 10 hours or not get in a 1000. The effort you need to put in to obtain them varies wildly, simply because the developers decided to design them that way.

These mods can be considered cheating by some. I don't care. Crowns (or rather, the achievements related) introduce a pointless and unfun grind in my opinion, and I'd rather be done with achievements like these as fast as possible regardless of methods used. Achievements that don't require any skill are not valid, in my perspective.

Have a look-see if you are interested:

Guaranteed Crowns for Iceborne - Fatalis Brute Zinogre Edition[www.nexusmods.com]

"Guarantees gold (small and big) crowns on places it could appear before." - AsteriskAmpersand

While the core idea is the same as the previous crown mod that was removed, this one has a few more options to choose from, offering a little more variety.

Currently, this mod has has these options:

Cheat Big/Small: Forces all quests to be a Big or Small crown even if it normally isn't possible.

Legal Big/Binary/Small: Forces the quest to produce the Biggest/Either Biggest or Smallest/Smallest size it could under normal circumstances. All monster sizes are legit. This means you can only get gold crowns on quests or expeditions where you could normally get a gold crown (just with very low chances).

Event Chances: Makes every quest have the size chances that the size event quests do.

Normalized: Makes every legal size on a quest equally likely. This significantly improves the chances of crowns on quests which could normally produce crowns (more than event chances even).

Note: You have to host the quest yourself for this mod to work since monster spawn sizes are determined by the host.

(Sort of) Guaranteed Crowns for Endemic Life[www.nexusmods.com]

"(Sort of) Guarantees gold (small and big) crowns for Endemic Life on places it could appear before."

While Endemic life doesn't really matter much, there are still two achievements for Master Rank that involves critter crowns. They both require a tiny and huge crown to unlock so it's much easier and faster than the Large Monster crowns. Chances are, you already got those achievements before finding this mod to begin with.

Mind that critters are client-side, so it means that this mod will work only for you and will work in any case and others won't be seeing or capturing the critters you can see.

Overlay Tool

Warning: Do NOT bully other people just because they are doing less damage than you. Don't be an elitist and ruin other people's experiences by telling that their damage sucks. The tool in this section is meant to show you many statistics that are not meant to be seen by the player by default. Be reasonable and only use this tool to measure how your personal performance is. 

Do NOT post DPS stats in chat unless you are playing with friends or asked others if they are ok with it. Not everyone wants to see the DPS stats ingame.

The following tool is an overlay that can show you statistics about your surroundings. The overlay aspect only works with Borderless Fullscreen if you are using Directx 11, but otherwise works without issues for Fullscreen if you are using Directx 12 instead. You can still post damage numbers and monster HP without using the overlay aspect, if you want to do so.

HunterPie - Overlay and Rich Presence[www.nexusmods.com]

"HunterPie is an overlay for Monster Hunter: World with Discord rich presence support."

A pretty decent overlay that shows a plethora of different things you don't usually have access to. I can write half a dozen paragraphs about the functions this thing has but I'll save you and myself the trouble, my dear reader.

The only downside I can ever think of about HunterPie is that you have to configure most things yourself. Then again, I think that this ultimately does more good than bad considering the sheer amount of customizability. You also get to pick and choose what you want to use without having to manually edit some obscure config file, so it isn't as complicated as one might think.

Note: HelloWorld has been removed from this section, primarily due to it being inferior to HunterPie in almost every way. There are other concerns about HelloWorld as well, like it containing malicious code, but there is no concrete proof due to the author refusing to open-source it. You don't "need" HelloWorld unless you absolutely want and/or need the only thing Hunterpie can't do. Namely, showing endemic life names.

PS: Seems like the author of HelloWorld removed/hid my post at some point, likely along other posts that mentioned HunterPie. Make of that what you will.

Custom Quests

I got you covered in case you are looking for even more challenge. The mods in this section are well-made custom quests (or quest packs) which will make you suffer the right way. What good is all the vanilla content if they can't offer a challenge after a few thousand hours?

Mod pages got all the information covered, so I won't be commenting a lot on these mods. For good reasons, I'm only going to list high quality custom quest mods here.

Custom quest mods require ALL players to have them, if you want to play with a group of people. The host having it isn't enough.

-MHG- Custom Quest Pack[www.nexusmods.com]

"383 Interesting and PROPERLY BALANCED quests!
A stand-alone quest pack for you and your bros. 0 interference with base game files.
Fight in interesting arenas, exciting combinations of monsters, in all types of quests.
If you want to 1v1 a Raging Brachy in arena, or 5 Elder Dragons at once, this is the pack for YOU"

I personally recommend this one the most due to the sheer amount of variety and the frequent updates (which fix and/or add quests). You will surely find some real challenge in this pack which will make the game fun again for you.

Make sure you check it often for updates, especially if you play with the same people who also has this mod. Everyone should have the same version when playing together to not cause desync and other weird things.

Resurgence - Returning Monster - White Fatalis[www.nexusmods.com]

"Adds White Fatalis into the game without replacing or affecting any other monster, it also adds Old World Inspired items for fashion into the game."

Resurgence - Returning Monster - Crimson Fatalis[www.nexusmods.com]

"Adds Crimson Fatalis into the game without replacing or affecting any other monster, it also adds Old World Inspired items for fashion into the game."

Devil Gene Nergigante - Custom Subspecies[www.nexusmods.com]

"Adds a new Nergigante subspecies, the Devil Gene Nergigante to the game without replacing regular Nergigante or Ruiner."

AT's Return - Unique HR Monsters with MR Stats - Includes Extreme Behemoth and Arch Tempered Monsters[www.nexusmods.com]

"Adds stand-alone custom quests with unique HR monsters scaled for MR equipment. Includes all MHW AT (Nergi,Vaal,Zora,Xeno...) and Deviljho, Extreme Behemoth."

Gotta suffer AT Nergigante's dive in MR as well because the game just isn't the same without getting one-shotted by that.

Permanent LRHR Special Arena Iceborne Update[www.nexusmods.com]

Update of an older mod, this one adds the Special Arena quests under Optional Quests, so you can see if you missed any of them or not. I recommend using this after capturing everything at least once, since that's the requirement for those quests to appear. The issue is, they randomly appear, so that's why I recommend this mod to see them all and complete them.

Save Editor

MHWI Save Editor[www.nexusmods.com]

"An open-source save editor for MHW Iceborne."

Now, this mighty powerful tool gets its own section for multiple reasons. It is capable of fixing and editing many things, and also a pinch of cheating if you are here for that. I recommend this tool for the more "reasonable" uses, however. These include: removing gear permanently (including Guardian armor pieces), uncapping Guiding Lands levels so you can level all regions to level 7 without a trainer and letting you add certain removed Event Quest content.

Of course, don't forget to make use of the most vital part of this save editor, which is its ability to back up your save. Always have multiple backups! You can never be too safe! It prevents user errors as well, since with a backup, you can roll your save back any time if you manage to mess up.

Currently, this save editor is capable of:

• Change Steam ID, Hunter and Palico names
  
• Edit character playtime (why would anyone want this, I wonder?)
  
• Edit Zenny & Research Points, Steamworks stored fuel
  
• Edit item amounts
  
• Add or remove items to your item boxes
  
• Uncraft equipment (only refunds materials), including nonremovable ones like Guardian armor parts
  
• Swap character slots (Note: photo data may be corrupted)
  
• Duplicate character slots
  
• Edit Guiding Lands region levels to as high as you've had reached before
  
• Uncap Guiding Lands region levels (which lets you level all regions to 7 without other methods)
  
• Get limited-time items like Artemis Gear and Assassin's Hood+
  
• Get limited-time layered armor like Artemis and Bayek (Note: Artemis requires you to be MR)
  
• Add Loadouts for DLC layered armor, like Yukumo, Silver Knight, and Samurai
  
• Display item names in any language supported by the game
  
• A backup system, to keep your save files safe
  
• Some fixes for possible issues in save files (maybe invalid items or something)

Troubleshooting

Got confused? Game crashing? Mods not working/loading? Stracker's Loader being iffy? You have come to the right place. In this section, I'll list a few methods to find what's wrong with the game and/or the mods you installed.

Before trying anything, do the sensible thing and note down what mods you got. If you are modding by hand, good luck to you, since you are heavily inconveniencing yourself by not using the MHW Mod Manager listed in the Essentials section.

Read. The. Damn. Mod. Pages. This section is here as a last resort. Read first, before starting anything in this section, as well.

"I couldn't figure out how to install mods..."

When in doubt, just extract the mod files into the game directory. They should automatically merge, unless the author did a little trolling and packed it incorrectly. The entire idea is to put the mod files into NativePC, which the game will load at launch.

For the MHW Mod Manager: You must tell it where the mods should go before it works by itself. Drag-and-drop the mods into the manager and let it lag like hell do its magic. You might or might not need to extract and re-pack a mod for the manager. Sometimes it works without fiddling, sometimes it doesn't. I repack the mods I got with only the NativePC folder inside a .zip file just to be sure, and it didn't fail yet.

Remember that adding or removing mods requires a restart of the game. In most cases, you won't be able to remove mods while the game is running, anyway. To be safe, just don't fiddle with the files while the game is running.

"Game is not booting up (or stays at a black screen after booting)"

You need to delete all mods (NativePC folder as a whole) and Stracker's Loader ("hid.dll" and "loader.dll" in game directory). Reinstall all mods one by one (or in groups of 2, 3 or 5 if you want to do it faster) and find which mod is causing issues.

This issue is usually caused by either an old version of Stracker's Loader OR having an old version of the game. Some mods may also cause it due to the same reason, as far as I'm aware.

Basically, make sure everything is up-to-date. The game itself included. If it doesn't solve the issue, chances are it wasn't about mods to begin with.

"Game launches but X mod does not work / does not load / does not whatever"

Make sure you installed the mod/s properly. Some authors place the NativePC folder into another folder, so extracting it doesn't install the mod. The contents of the mod's NativePC folder should be copied into the NativePC folder in the game directory for a mod to load.

If you installed it correctly but it still does not load, check if the mod in question is updated for the latest MHW version. Read the mod pages and see if the mods require something else to work.

• Mods created or updated after the release of Iceborne mostly require Iceborne to function
  
• A decent amount of mods still require Stracker's Loader even if they don't list it as a prerequisite
  
• Plugin mods require the Performance Booster and Plugin Extender to work
  
• Custom quests require the Quest Loader which comes together with Stracker's Loader

Make sure you have everything you need for a mod to work. ᵀʰᵉʳᵉ ᶦˢ ᵃ ʳᵉᵃˢᵒⁿ ʷᵉ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵃⁿ "ᴱˢˢᵉⁿᵗᶦᵃˡˢ" ˢᵉᶜᵗᶦᵒⁿ ᶦⁿ ᵗʰᶦˢ ᵍᵘᶦᵈᵉ.

If your issue is caused by Vortex's non-existent load order (or whatever other problem it is capable of producing): Don't use Vortex. MHW Mod Manager lags a little if a mod has a lot of files or is too large, but it will ultimately be better. The only downside is the lag, but that's manageable. Just be patient.

"X and Y mod are incompatible (and/or have shared files)"

No solution unless you learn modding or pay/request someone to combine the mods. In some cases, combining the mods may not be an option as well.

You need to use initiative when combining mods that have common files. If the shared file/s is/are not very important, you can probably overwrite it and it will cause no issues. This method requires knowledge of the files to an extent, however. Just give up on one of the mods if you don't know what you are doing.

I usually added a note under the mods that may have issues with other mods, because that's not something you can find out about unless you try installing mods with conflicting files. If I missed any ᵃⁿᵈ ˢᵘʳᵉˡʸ ᴵ ᵈᶦᵈ ᵐᶦˢˢ ˢᵒᵐᵉ, whatever mod manager you should already be using will tell you about it.

"Everything else failed and I'm still confused"

Perform a clean install. The easiest and shortest way to do a clean installation is to delete all the files in game directory EXCEPT the "chunk" folder (to not redownload the entire game), the "chunkhipc" folder (if you use High Res textures, to not redownload them) and "graphics_option.ini" (to keep your graphics settings). Then verify the game via Steam to redownload the "missing" files. It will download a bunch of files (like the game's own executable). You now have a clean installation.

Mods have their dedicated folder, so no mod changes anything in terms of game files. This means that you can repeat this process as many times as you want and/or need. Remember that you will need to reinstall ReShade if you do a clean installation, unless you keep the relevant files while performing a clean install, of course.

If you still have issues after this while trying to run the game with mods installed... there's a high chance you're missing something else. Maybe it's that GPU driver you update once a year. Maybe it's the Visual Studio x86/x64 you didn't install for Stracker's Loader. It could be anything except the mods, at that point. Well, godspeed. I hope you figure it out.

Credits and Closing Notes

My eternal gratitude to everyone I listed below!

- Me, myself and I
- Mod creators who made all the mods and tools to make this guide possible
- Every single person in the comments who thanked me for my work
- Folks who suggested some good stuff for me to add into the guide
- That one lad who left hate mail because modding is bad or something and I should feel bad for enhancing my experience
- That other random pal who considers all modding as cheating, leaving a snarky comment
- ᵗʰᵃᵗ ³ ᴬᴹ ᶦᵈᵉᵃ ᵗᵒ ᵃᵈᵈ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ˢᵐᵃˡˡ ᵗᵉˣᵗˢ ᵃʳᵒᵘⁿᵈ ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ᴵ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵏ ᴵ'ᵐ ˡᵒˢᶦⁿᵍ ᶦᵗ ᶠᵒʳ ʳᵉᵃˡ ᵗʰᶦˢ ᵗᶦᵐᵉ
- Everyone who gave me awards in the past years to show their appreciation. It's thanks to you that I can afford stuff in the Points Shop to begin with. You really rock!

I check Nexus Mods several times every week, and almost on a daily basis, to see if there's anything worth mentioning. Most of the mods are purely on the visual side or are simply not worth mentioning, so there's that.

You can always check the update logs below to see if you missed any new additions or not. The amount of additions will slow down drastically as time passes, due to less new mods being made often and the game being in a finished state. However, that won't stop me from updating this guide ᵃˢ ˡᵒⁿᵍ ᵃˢ ᴵ'ᵐ ᵃˡᶦᵛᵉ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᶦˢ.

If you liked this guide a little too much and would like to support me, you can donate through BuyMeACoffee or by gifting me an item via Steam trading. I'm eternally grateful if my work was useful and worthy enough for you to consider supporting me!

You can buy me a coffee here[www.buymeacoffee.com]
Alternatively, you can send me a trade request by using this link.

Thanks for your attention, my dear reader. Rating this guide is optional ʲᵘˢᵗ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ᵐᵒᵈˢ, so it's up to you. Feel free to point out mistakes or broken links. You can always suggest useful mods for this guide, if you happen to find anything noteworthy. Cheers and have fun!

Past Update Logs

Update Log (2021)
Update Log (2022)

Update Log (2023)

January

- 13.01.2023 Moved the entire wall-of-text that was the update log of 2022 into a Pastebin link. Also merged the past logs under the same section
- 22.01.2023 Added "Better Palico AI" under Honorable Mentions (Cont. Pt. 3)
- 24.01.2023 Added "Easy-to-hear QUEST ACCEPT sound" and "Mute Palico Coral Horn in My House" under Visual and Sound Mods (Cont.) ᵃⁿᵈ ʳᵃⁿ ᵒᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ˢᵖᵃᶜᵉ ˡᵒˡ
- 27.01.2023 Created "Visual and Sound Mods (Cont. Pt. 2)" and added "Optimized Bow Charge Effect Color for Beginners RGB" under it. Replaced "Lower Height for Close Camera" with "Camera Distance Change for Iceborne" under Honorable Mentions (Cont. Pt. 1).

February

- 16.02.2023 Added "Charms Unlocked and Free" under "Cheaty Mods (Cont.)"
- 23.02.2023 Fixed a bunch of typos and added a clarification for some things here and there

March

- 01.03.2023 Added "No Waist Lights" and "No Player Light" under Visual and Sound Mods (Cont. Pt. 2). Also got the brilliant idea of making separate unlisted guides for past update logs for ease of access ʷʰʸ ᵈᶦᵈⁿ'ᵗ ᴵ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵏ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᶦˢ ᵇᵉᶠᵒʳᵉ. Original formatting is visible in them and you no longer have to go through Steam's confirmation (or turn a VPN on for Pastebin in some cases) to access them anymore.
- 18.03.2023 Added "All Monster Drops Increased" under Cheaty Mods (Cont.)
- 22.03.2023 Added "Permanent LRHR Special Arena Iceborne Update" under Custom Quests. Moved "-MHG- Custom Quest Pack" at the top of the list under the same section, since it's basically the best custom quest mod out there ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ ᵗᶦᵐᵉ
- 23.03.2023 Fiddled with Troubleshooting. Increased clarity and humor factor.

April

- 01.04.2023 Uploaded an important update video about the future of this guide. Make sure to check it out ʷᵉ ᵈᵒ ᵃ ˡᶦᵗᵗˡᵉ ᵗʳᵒˡˡᶦⁿᵍ
- 09.04.2023 Not much happening lately, but life's going fairly well. Adjusted Credits and Closing Notes a little. Added two ways for people to donate if they really liked my work and would like to support me. You can find the details under the same section. Many thanks in advance if you decide to support me!

May

- 18.05.2023 Added "No Waist Lights and No Knives" under Visual and Sound Mods (Cont. Pt. 2)
- 22.05.2023 Created "Cheaty Mods (Cont. Pt. 2)" ᵈᵃᵐᵐᶦᵗ ᴵ ʳᵃⁿ ᵒᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ˢᵖᵃᶜᵉ ʸᵉᵗ ᵃᵍᵃᶦⁿ and added "QoL Fast Travel" under it
- 28.05.2023 Added "Critical EFX Colors" under Visual and Sound Mods (Cont. Pt. 2). Moved "More Wedge Beetles (Iceborne Edition)" from Honorable Mentions to Cheaty Mods (Cont. Pt. 2) because turns out it probably didn't belong there to begin with

June

- 11.06.2023 Added "Easier to See Slinger Ammo Gathering Spots" under Honorable Mentions (Cont. Pt. 3)
- 28.06.2023 Changed a few things under Credits and Closing Notes related to donations. You can now donate through "Buy Me A Coffee" instead of Wise.
- 29.06.2023 Added "Realistic LUT - Not Need ReShade" under Visual and Sound Mods (Cont. Pt. 2)

July

- 31.07.2023 Nothing of note this month. I admit, this is a first since the dawn of this guide. Never thought we'd see a day like this. Genuinely unprecedented.

August

- 13.08.2023 Added "Better Skill Descriptions (English)" under Honorable Mentions (Cont. Pt. 3)
- 15.08.2023 Created the section "Mod List for New Hunters"

September

- 01.09.2023 Nothing new. Yet. On another note, it's my month again, fellas.
- 09.09.2023 Added "Muted IG Triple Up Attack SFX" under Visual and Sound Mods (Cont. Pt. 2). Also added "Remove Monster Roar Blur" under Honorable Mentions (Cont. Pt. 3)
- 10.09.2023 Added "No More Fest Music in Astera Gathering Hub (Remove Festival Music)" under Visual and Sound Mods (Cont. Pt. 2)

[Mr. September]

I didn't test it in LR, but it removes all clagger you deal, so it should work.

[KyoChan34]

Does Remove Clagger Nothing Else work on low rank?

[Mr. September]

Ah, I'm glad you like my work! However, It's not really a big deal to maintain the guide. If anything, starting it was the biggest challenge I had to go through. The first two years were much more active, as well. Lately, I'm mostly slacking since people don't make mods that are worth mentioning often enough to warrant any updates. I think I'll end up going through the entire Nexus again when I can just to smell out that last mod or two to add to the guide.

I intend to keep going as long as I can. I hope I never disappoint my audience. Thanks for the support!

[mayne]

Yeah, and it's ridiculous that you cannot download all the mods in one go without Vortex and instead have to install them one by one. Thank you so much for making this guide, it is seriously one of the best ones I have ever seen on Steam and the fact that you're still supporting and updating it to this day is amazing.

[Mr. September]

I feel like I should just cut to the chase and just make a section for stuff like that. I would have created multiple mod lists a dozen times over if Nexus didn't require you to use Vortex to even create them in the first place.

I'll whip something up. The comments have a character limit, and I'm on mobile at the moment, so it's a better idea if I just roll up my sleeves and type a new section out from scratch instead. It will be a damn chore but it will be more efficient in the long run.

[mayne]

Hello! I saw that you responded to someone asking for recommendations of mods for a first time playthrough however that list is from two years ago and the guide has been updated multiple times since then. Are there any changes or additions you would make to it now?

[Sannleika]

This post is so helpful for learning to mod world. Its much simpler than I initially expected thanks.

[Mr. September]

I'm glad you found my work useful!

About your question: All achievements can be obtained even if you use mods. Come to think of it, I should probably mention it somewhere, now that you mentioned it...

[nellyyyy]

You're the best, man. Thank you so much for this post. Can I ask, will the steam achievements be affected by the mods installed, like it wouldn't work while there are mods installed.

[The D-Man]

Thanks a lot! I downloaded a lot of the Essential Mods, having a better overall experience is very appreciated.