PAYDAY 2 mods and tools (2024)

Various mods (modifications that change how the game appears or works) and tools (programs that allow things like inspection of the game files) are available from third-party developers. This page lists a few of the mods and tools that are available. Most of these work only with the PC version of the game.

Note that Overkill Software will not provide technical support for any issues or problems you encounter from modifying your game files; you may have to remove the modifications to get things working again.

Tools and mods may need to be updated when the game is updated.

A non-exhaustive list of PAYDAY 2 mod downloads may be found here. More mods may also be found by browsing the Modding subforum of the PAYDAY 2 Steam Community.

Mods can be split into two major groups; Clientside, and Lua.

Clientside

Clientside (/mod_override) mods are generally safe to use in online play - they often have little (if any) impact on the experience of other users, and will be unnoticeable to other players.

The two most common types of clientside mod are texture and sound mods; these modify the textures or sounds of various objects, characters or environment. Only has an impact on the mod user's experience, even if said player is the host.

Such modifications have been unofficially supported by Overkill with the addition of the mod_overrides system (see Tools below) which allows the game to load unpacked assets from a special folder in place of archived files. This makes many simple mods significantly easier to use than they were before, though there are restrictions on the file types that can be loaded using this system in order to prevent malicious behaviour.

Lua Mods

Lua mods utilize a 'hook' .dll (or .so for Linux users) and associated files to inject, overwrite, or append code to the Lua scripts used by the game itself, whilst the game is running. Lua mods affect the structure of the game and range from HUD mods that reveal additional information (such as enemy health and damage) to small quality of life changes (such as being able to press a button once as opposed to being forced to hold it down during an interaction) to full game overhauls (which typically seek to address balance and difficulty issues) to malicious cheats (such as lootbag spawning or invulnerability).

It is important to note that most Lua-based modifications are not considered cheats; as of February 2016, gameplay-altering mods, including rebalance mods, are condoned by Overkill so long as they do not amount to blatant cheating (i.e. invulnerability, free cash, experience, or achievements, etc.) and are used only in single player or with the consent of the other players in one's lobby.^[1] Care should still be taken, however, as a poorly-written or outdated script can easily cause the game to crash or suffer severe glitches.

HoxHud

Warning: HoxHud is non-functional and discontinued. This section is kept only for archive purposes. Most of the following information will be obsolete, including links.

"HoxHud Initialised"

—HoxHud booting up.

HoxHud is a mod for the PC version of PAYDAY 2 that enhances the HUD (Heads-Up Display) to add additional informational elements on the screen, such as time remaining on drills and enemy health. HoxHud also has basic anticheat measures designed to protect users from others using cheats. Further information on the mod and how to obtain it is available from the HoxHud Steam group.

HoxHud can be configured to the player's taste with a simple configuration file or (since version P3.1) through the ingame options menu.

Note:In order to use HoxHud, the player needs tostay present in the HoxHud Steam group. This also means that HoxHud is an online-only HUD. It also may be disabled when a new game update becomes live before HoxHud is appropriately updated. This is done to prevent bug reports that already have been fixed.

Trivia

• The sound byte "HoxHud Initialised" played at the start of a heist was provided by Hoxton's voice actor, Pete Gold, himself.^[2]
• HoxHud runs on its own programming, which in turn disables BLT to make use of HoxHud's functions and for safety reasons.

Gallery

PocoHud

An alternative to HoxHud, PocoHud is a similar PC-based modification (now on its third iteration) that enhances the HUD with extra information in much the same way, but offers a different experience - whilst it lacks many features HoxHud users may be accustomed to (such as the enhanced assault phase indicator) it also comes with its own array of unique features, such as RPG-styled buff icons (e.g. Underdog, Overkill), in-chat alerts to ingame events (such as drill completion or enemy conversion), accurate ammo/medical bag content readouts, and its own advanced hit indicators that even display the amount of damage taken and can fade between colours as health/armour are depleted and come closer to reaching zero.

PocoHud also features a full ingame customization menu that allows for easy adjustment of HUD settings - elements that users do not like can easily be turned off.

PocoHud could be run seamlessly alongside HoxHud, and the configuration menus of both mods allow users to disable conflicting features or use the style or features of whichever mod they prefer. In 2017 it has moved to BLT.

More information about PocoHud (including downloads) can be seen on its Steam Community Group.

WolfHUD

WolfHUD is a HUD modification in the same vein as HoxHud and PocoHud, offering many of the features found in the other two HUDs, including assault information, enemy health bars and damage popups, and map information such as guard, civilian, and package counters.

GoonMod

GoonMod is an obsolete mod that possesses a small but versatile collection of features, and aims to make the game more interesting for veteran players, as well as reducing frustration with certain other elements of gameplay. One of its most notable features are Mutators (a concept dating back to the days of Unreal Tournament and earlier) which allow the game's host to impose special gameplay quirks - one example is making it so that law enforcers drop no ammo, but Bulldozers have a chance to drop an ammo bag on death. Another replaces all enemies with Tasers. Several mutators are compatible with each other, for instance allowing a massively increased spawn rate whilst all law enforcers run as fast as the Cloaker.

Whilst enabled, these mutators disable achievement progress and unlocks, and - as they alter the intended gameplay experience - force the use of a private lobby; players must either be friends of the host on Steam, and/or invited manually.

GoonMod also includes a 'cargo' system that allows for trading items with other players that have GoonMod installed; 'gage coins', which are awarded after completing any Mod Courier assignment, and can in turn be used to purchase weapon and mask items (achievement-locked items must still be unlocked normally, rare/infamous items cost more); and much more. GoonMod is compatible with both PocoHud and HoxHud, and has few conflicting features. GoonMod also includes automatic updating. GoonMod also has customization options that include using mask materials to create camouflages for weapons.

You can read more info about GoonMod on its main page or on its GitHub page.

JamesWilko, the mod's creator, was hired by Overkill, so many contents of the mod were eventually added to the vanilla game.

Tools

As mentioned before, tools can be used to examine the game assets.

PAYDAY 2 Bundle & Mod Tool

PAYDAY 2 Bundle Tool

The Bundle Tool is a small tool that has been officially approved by Overkill Software for technical use. The tool acts as a game file extractor, and as such will allow users to extract (or 'rip') game textures, sounds and models for modding use.

PAYDAY 2 Mod Tool

The Mod Tool is another Overkill approved tool that allows users to easily create and apply custom mods based on the contents extracted by the Bundle Tool. User-created mods are generally allowed in-game, so long as they don't amount to blatant cheating or negatively affect other players' experiences as mentioned above. The current version is v1.15.

The links to the downloads as well as modding instructions are here.

Mod Overrides

Overkill working together with Last Bullet introduced another modding alternative by having a mod overrides folder allowing users to drag and drop mod folders into the mod overrides folder, it is used for mods that aren't .pdmod type. Mod Overrides isn't as versatile as .pdmod. This type of mods include mainly custom maps and masks, custom weapons and attachments, sounds and textures.

Crash Fix

If your game crashes on startup or your game does not work at all, follow this guide. This usually happens when a computer can not handle all of the user's mods. Tested on Windows.

1. Go to My Computer (This PC for Windows 8 users).
2. Go into Disk C (may vary if your game is installed on another hard drive).
3. From there, go to "Program Files (x86)" (If using a 32-bit system then go to Program Files).
4. Go into Steam.
5. When in the Steam folder, go to steamapps, then common.
6. Find the PAYDAY 2 folder and go to there.
7. Delete the assets folder.
8. Go to Steam, right click on PAYDAY 2 and select Properties.
9. Select the local files tab.
10. Finally, select the verify the integrity of game cache.

Once followed correctly, Steam will download PAYDAY 2 resources. PAYDAY 2 stores the player's save data separately in the Steam Cloud, so this process is safe to use without the risk of losing skills, weapons, and other progression unlockables.

References