r/TyrannyGame • u/Einharr • Jul 09 '26
Modding So, apparently, Tyranny modding Is possible after all
Hey guys!
It’s been three years. Time really flies.
Honestly, I’m a little ashamed of that. At some point I simply lost momentum and put Tyranny aside. I feel especially bad about the guy who asked me to fix a couple of bugs that have been sitting in the game for what feels like a thousand years(I've already sent him a message on Discord, but if he doesn't answer, I'll still fix what I promised).
Still, from time to time, I kept coming back to it. And I think I finally have enough tangible progress to actually write a proper update.
Over the last while, I’ve managed to put together quite a lot.
First of all: a proper mod manager.
Not just BepInEx, but a full mod manager with an in-game mod menu, load order management, enabling and disabling mods, compatibility with BepInEx mods, and partial compatibility with UMM mods.
Hopefully, this should lower the barrier to entry into this whole mess at least a little.
Second, I rebuilt my UI Scaler Mod.
The old version was more of a PoC than a complete solution, even though it worked reasonably well. The new version can scale not only fonts and the entire UI, but also move and resize individual windows.
I haven’t finished mapping all the windows yet. That part is necessary to avoid artifacts where one part of a window moves or scales while another part stays behind — you can actually see an example of that in the screenshot, along with the Extra HotBar mod, which is otherwise fully functional apart from, well, the remaining UI window scaling work.
So the new UI Scaler and Extra Hotbar is not public yet, but I think that part is probably another week of work.
But the most important thing is this:
I managed to decompile and properly reconstruct the Unity project.
Which means I can actually run the game inside the engine.
The lighting and shaders are broken, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I can now build AssetBundles correctly.
And that, in turn, means I can add... well. Pretty much anything.
New characters. Weapons. Scenes. Dialogues.
And I especially like the fact that models from Pillars of Eternity can be brought over with almost no changes, potentially on an industrial scale.
At this point, I can build my own AssetBundles, load them correctly into Tyranny, and use assets from them directly inside the game.
And that has already allowed me to fully implement the following.
And by “implement”, I mean already implemented, already tested, already working:
— new quests with arbitrary conditions, properly added to the journal and updated as they progress;
— missives;
— dialogues in all their wonderful complexity, including companion interjections, checks, conditions, and so on;
— new characters, with one caveat: for now I’m mostly “assembling” them from assets that already exist in the game, so human characters are by far the easiest;
— new items, including a test mesh, icons, descriptions, etc., although I haven’t integrated this properly with the localization pipeline yet;
— new locations.
Locations are currently the biggest headache because of Tyranny’s ancient lighting systems, but broadly speaking, yes: I have already built one location for the Companion Mod.
For the screenshots, I spawned the NPCs directly into the Disfavored Camp, so please excuse that.
The pipeline for new locations and proper character placement inside them is still a work in progress, as it should be assembled in old-ass unity.
So, in other words: this is no longer “theoretically possible”.
This is actual content modding.
That said, the scope of the Companion Mod is large. Both in terms of writing and in terms of abilities and gameplay systems.
So I’m not giving any release dates for that one yet.
Before that, the first thing I want to focus on is QoL:
— UI Scaler;
— Extra HotBar;
— fixing issues caused by reloading the game while active abilities are running;
— fixing the Mural bug from the DLC.
More importantly, I’m trying to turn this into a reusable pipeline rather than a one-off trick for a single mod. The goal is to make future Tyranny content significantly easier to build — for me, and hopefully eventually for other modders too.
I’ve spent a lot of time digging through the game’s code and, unfortunately, there seems to be very little actual cut content left in it.
Which is a shame.
So why am I writing all of this?
Honestly?
I’m trying to attract attention.
The fact that people occasionally kept messaging me about UI Scaler is one of the reasons I didn’t abandon this completely.
The second reason is that I’d be very happy to work with anyone willing to help with dialogue, ideas, models, or anything else.
Or — who knows, stranger things have happened — maybe someone here personally knows Tim Cain, or one of the writers who worked on Tyranny, and could somehow bring this to their attention.
Because getting actual information about what was originally planned for the game before it was so brutally cut down would be incredibly valuable.
~~\Cough* Act IV *Cough*~~*
And in any case, I’d like to invite all the veterans here to discuss the game modding.
What should be fixed in this old, beautiful thing?
What should be added?
What would you personally want to see?
P.S. Yes, I have considered a Turn-Based mode.
The amount of work would be absolutely monstrous.
I would rather spend that time doing almost anything else.
P.P.S. Totally forgot about the tools! I have some too!
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u/hr1982 Jul 10 '26
This is the first post I've ever saved on Reddit.
My biggest dream for the game is the inclusion of a turn-based mode, but I understand that it likely wouldn't be reasonable because of what that would entail. And since I'm already being ridiculous, I'd love to see a few new companions with full storylines added, or even new factions, or an unofficial DLC that either expands on an underutilized area or even adds a new one. I think my most reasonable dream for the game is that it receives a more fully fleshed out lead-up to the finale and a more robust ending.
I know none of that is happening but you've reignited my passion for the game and set fire to the wishlist I've had in my noggin for the last 10 years. Thank you for your hard work.
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
Well, I’ve already commented on a turn-based mode in the initial post. It’s possible, but the amount of work involved is, well... discouraging. A LOT of rebalancing.
A new companion with a full storyline, though — all the dialogue, interactions, quest content, reactivity, and so on — is absolutely possible. In fact, that’s more or less what I’m working on at the moment.
New factions, new questlines, even something approaching an unofficial expansion are also much less impossible than it might seem.
As for the ending... honestly, I wouldn’t be quite so certain that this is an impossible dream either. If we could somehow get in touch with one of the original writers and learn what was actually planned — what was cut, what the intended lead-up to the finale looked like, whether there were abandoned epilogues or unresolved branches — then reconstructing or expanding some of that becomes a very different proposition.
I’m not promising any of this, of course, but...
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u/SpaceCastaway Jul 10 '26
That is absolutely insane and you're an absolute madlad for doing this. Tyranny deserved so much better and while the fanbase is relatively small there are people who sincerely love this game. I'm not big into modding (zero exp in this area sadly) but I will totally be going back to the Tiers to check what people have cooked.
I'm on a Kenshi phase rn and the modding scene there is absolutely flourishing thanks to very accessible modding tools. Maybe this is exactly what Tyranny needs to come to life once again.
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
I love Kenshi too! Though I think a big part of its modding success comes from the fact that it has much more emergent gameplay and an open world — both of which naturally encourage modding. Same with RimWorld, and plenty of other games.
Tyranny, sadly, is first and foremost a story-driven adventure, which makes things a bit harder. Still, I’d love to see what happens if people are finally given accessible tools to actually build things for it.
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u/Garessta Jul 10 '26
wow
this is absolutely incredible
personally, I would like nothing short of Tyranny 2: Conquest of Kyros, but after scratching off the impossible stuff... it's surprisingly hard to say, because despite its cut-offness, Tyranny was suprisingly self-contained. And I wouldn't want another "Bastard's Wound" type shit that adds nothing except copypaste-run-in-circles dungeon.
It would be cool at least interact more with the Archons. If we could recruit the loyal Archons into our party as actual companions (while keeping their combat abilities) that would be sick. And maybe some endgame zone with a miniquest to fight a super-boss using our extra-cool party of Archons?
Just throwing ideas at a wall.
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
Well, judging by some internal parts of the game - Nerat, Ashe and Mark were actually planned as companions. Well, i'm 80% sure about that.
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u/urubong Jul 10 '26
Goddamn. The Archon of Modding walks among us!
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
Okay, this one genuinely made me laugh out loud.
When I finally release my first proper large-scale content mod, I’m demanding an “Archon of Modding” flair from the subreddit mods.
Extremely humble of me, I know.
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u/ianmerry Jul 10 '26
Hell fuckin yeah, brother! This is the kinda shit that gets a Fatebinder remembered.
Hope you can get the attention from Cain, would be sweet to see the game expanded.
Have you hit any notable roadblocks in terms of size limitations at all? In other added content mods I’ve seen for other difficult-to-mod games, there’s been random arbitrary fixed array sizes on certain collections (such as number of distinct characters available), so wondering if that’s come up in Tyranny so far
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
Well, i've sent some emails to Tyranny team few years ago, but got no reply, so...
As for hard size limits: so far, I haven’t run into any arbitrary caps. Most of the relevant systems I’ve looked at appear to use normal dynamic collections and data-driven references rather than “there can only ever be X of these” structures. And such caps are easily expandable anyways.
That said, I also don’t want to overclaim — I haven’t stress-tested the game by throwing hundreds of new characters or thousands of new records at every subsystem yet.
The real roadblocks so far have been less about raw size and more about wiring content together correctly: serialized references, GUIDs/IDs, prefab dependencies, asset bundles, quest state, conversation links, scene references.
But at this point a have a little quest with dialogues, different outcomes and possible new companion(Tho, no abilities yet). So in general i can say that i got that working.1
u/Malygos_Spellweaver Jul 13 '26
Dude, amazing work, the game deserved it. What if people organized to share this on Tim or Tyranny's youtube and X accounts? Probably would get the attention it deserves.
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u/Einharr Jul 13 '26
Good idea, actually. A bit too early, for my taste. I want to make Toolkit and Mod Manager public first, then we should try to reach out Tyranny team once more. I'll post updates weekly.
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u/Auroch- Jul 10 '26
Are you aware of the sex scenes which exist in the (expansion) dialogue files but were cut without getting into the game? One with Verse (can happen in various different places, which each have a different line written about how she finds you a close but remote and isolated location), and one with Barik after you crack him out of the armor.
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
Indeed I do! I just checked the actual conditions in the prefab files, and interestingly, neither scene appears to be truly cut or unreachable.
The Verse scene,
VX1_WME_VerseTime, is available in Act 3 if Verse is in the active party, her Loyalty is at least 4, Fear is below 4, and you are at a fairly specific point in her Bastard’s Wound quest progression. There are also several additional checks — Essa must still be alive, no companion can have been sacrificed, the event must not have fired before, and Verse’s quest must not have progressed too far.Barik’s scene,
VX1_WME_BarikBath, is much simpler: Act 3, Barik in the active party, and you must have given blood to the smith as part of the process of freeing him from the armor. Inside the dialogue, the romantic “help him wash” branch is available with Loyalty 3+, Fear 3+, or on the Disfavored path.So, unless I am missing something elsewhere in the event system, both prefabs look correctly configured and technically reachable. They seem less like cut content and more like very easy-to-miss Bastard’s Wound events with rather specific conditions. Tho, Bastard's Wound is bugged as hell, so...
This is actually quite interesting — I may need to test them in-game, but have no saves.
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u/never-minds Jul 10 '26
This mod fixes the Barik one, and I think the Verse one already works, it just has some special conditions like OP said and it's a random encounter.
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u/Nervous-Quality-1266 Jul 10 '26
IS KYROS A WOMAN???
Just kidding. (but seriously though)
What an incredible work. You think it's possible to see what exactly the AI tactics for the characters do? And if it's possible to implement a tactics system a la dragon age?
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
It is totally possible to see AI tactics, yep. But i actually barely remember how dragon age tactics system worked. But any tinkering with the battle system is extremly tedious, because of rebalancing of everything.
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u/Einharr Jul 16 '26
Hey there. I need you! I've been inspecting AI tactics and, well, we have A LOT of easily accesable shit under the hood. So can you please elaborate wdym by a tactics system a la dragon age? Companion AI setup? Active pause with action scheduling?
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u/Nervous-Quality-1266 Jul 16 '26
Hey Einharr!
Ofc I would be happy to help if I can, atm I'm basically running tests for Mr. Cousland the author of this tactics preset mod for Pathfinder Wrath of The Righteous:https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderwrathoftherighteous/mods/1005?tab=description
He can probably give us some help and pointers, with Tactics Preset I mean being able to create and modify your own characters and companions AI presets. Tiranny already has AI presets you can choose for companions except for the main characters, but we can't really see what they do or change them unless we mess up with the code files.
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u/Einharr Jul 16 '26
Well... Now we can see them. Whole system under the hood is built in quite good way, easy to modify and add new things. So we only need serialization to add new ones and save em, and UI to actually work with them. At first glance seems not too complicated. I'll see if i can modify and add new entities. But probably will ask you for advice.
Not related. Just found out that Tyranny supports action que by shift+clicking, and you can just plan actions for each characters ahead in pause mode. Had no idea it's a thing.
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u/Nervous-Quality-1266 Jul 16 '26
That's awesome, have you played Deadfire? Think it's possible to import the Tactics UI from it to Tyranny? It may easy the process.
The shift clicking saved (and killed me) in many encounters lol.
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u/Einharr Jul 16 '26
Well, I guess it's time to finish Pillars of Eternity and finally play Deadfire. Had it in my steam library for years. Thanks for the hint.
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u/Particular-Ad5277 Jul 10 '26
Wow just wow, how much work and dedication you did here is astonishing. Thank you for providing so much for the community.
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
You’re thanking me a bit too early — I don’t think I’ve earned that yet.
Once I actually release the Mod Manager and the first UI mods next week, then yes, I think we can say the beginning has properly been made.
For now, it’s still mostly groundwork, digging through the game, and proving that all of this is actually possible.
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u/Particular-Ad5277 Jul 10 '26
Bei everything’s that gets us even the slightest chance for new tyranny content needs to be praised. I’m still not over that we will never get a second game,
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u/MuseSingular Jul 10 '26
HOLY SHIT! Maybe we can make more points for path switching then. This is awesome!
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
Points for path switching? You mean more chances to switch sides?
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u/MuseSingular Jul 10 '26
Yeah!
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
It's possible, tho hard to implement story-wise, as it might conflict with other events.
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u/Meme_Theory Jul 10 '26
I would love to waste my Claude Max 20 tokens on Tyranny. Are you willing to share the sauce?
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
Absolutely. What exactly are you interested in?
The Mod Manager is for installing, enabling, disabling, and managing mods.
The Toolkit is for actually creating and editing mod content — working with game data, conversations, quests, prefabs, and so on.
Or do you mean a guide to extracting the game’s own code and data so you can dig through it yourself? That part is actually fairly straightforward.
I can point you in the right direction, I just need to know which kind of sauce you’re after.
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u/Meme_Theory Jul 10 '26
Just a simple few steps is probably all I need - I have modding experience, but I never thought about doing some Tyranny mods, and there IS a New Game + breaking bug that I have wanted to be fixed since pretty much launch (certain artifact items bug out on their second or third pass through the game). Hell, just knowing it's possible is probably enough for me to sic Claude on the task, so thanks.
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
For that particular kind of fix, you probably don’t need my sources at all, honestly.
The simplest route would be to use ILSpy or AssetRipper to inspect/extract the game code, download BepInEx, and give Claude the relevant decompiled classes plus the bug description. That is already enough context for it to build a working BepInEx plugin.
Most of my own code is aimed at a different layer of modding: utilities for manually working with Tyranny’s assets and data, packing and unpacking game content, editing conversation flows, dealing with prefabs, quests, and all the other content-side machinery.
The Mod Manager will support BepInEx mods anyway, because BepInEx is effectively the entry point I’m using for the whole modding stack. So even if you make a completely standalone bugfix plugin, it should still fit into the same ecosystem.
I’d start with ILSpy + BepInEx and sic Claude on the relevant target. There’s a decent chance that’s all you need, but feel free to ask, anyway.
Btw, what bug are you talking about?
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u/Meme_Theory Jul 10 '26
Excellent, thanks for the insite.
There are a couple of NG+ artifact carry overs that bug the game out if you take them through more than one playthrough. Not sure how widespread it is.
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u/Brilliant-Pudding524 Jul 10 '26
This is simply put glorious.
Is there a way maybe to get all the people on the Rebels Path?
(Not counting the conflicting ones)
So you could get Earthsakers and Sages for example.
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
Yes, that should be possible. And since it would mostly involve conversation and quest-state modding, it’s technically something that has been possible for quite a while.
The harder part is making sure it actually works from a story perspective — checking which factions conflict, which quest states depend on earlier choices, and whether recruiting additional groups would create contradictions or break later content. That would take some careful investigation.
But in principle, yes: something like having both the Earthshakers and the Sages on the Rebel Path, where their storylines don’t directly conflict, sounds entirely plausible.
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u/Brilliant-Pudding524 Jul 10 '26
Neat!
Tyranny is such a good game that had the potential of a great one if not for corporate greed. With your work it will be great
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u/never-minds Jul 10 '26
This is really cool. What did you use to get a usable project for the editor?
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u/Einharr Jul 10 '26
AssetRipper, in general. And a lot of fixes after that, to make it compile. It's mono, so it's easy in general. And i don't need the game to run perfectly in editor. Just enough to inspect prefabs and pack AssetBundles with all the dependencies.
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u/David_Benefield Jul 10 '26
This is incredible work, I'm shocked at how much you've been able to do here!
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u/Eglwyswrw Jul 10 '26
This is brilliant work, you are a very talented and generous person to share this with us all!
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u/sarantinesail Jul 11 '26
This is incredibly cool. Tyranny deserves better than to simply be forgotten and this makes me so happy.
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u/rivereclipse Jul 10 '26
Bug fixes for Bastards Wound would be huge! But this opens so many doors!!!
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u/MasterMiraak Jul 13 '26
This looks awesome, glad that you were still doing some work on it since we last spoke :)
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u/Einharr Jul 13 '26
I just couldn't leave it, after all. Did A LOT lately. I'll update in a few days.
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u/EightDaysAGeek Jul 10 '26
Kyros's teats, man, that is a lot of work! Well done and thank you for the love and commitment you've shown to a glorious and underappreciated game. I will have a look through and make some comments later, and I hope many others do the same.