Installing Steamodded windows

How to install Steamodded on Windows

Steamodded currently only works with the Steam version of Balatro. The Microsoft Store version is unsupported as of now.

Step 1: Anti-virus setup

Steamodded uses a runtime injector called Lovely to modify Balatro's code. Since it behaves similarly to a Trojan, some antivirus software may incorrectly flag it as malware. Lovely is not malicious, is open source, and can even be built from source.

In order to get Lovely and Steamodded running properly, you will have to whitelist Balatro's installation folder in whatever anti-virus software you may be using. You may also need to temporarily disable real-time protection to avoid having files deleted while moving them around.

Example: steps for Windows Defender

Differences may occur if you're using different software.

1. Navigate to the game's directory by right-clicking the game in Steam, hovering "Manage", and selecting "Browse local files". Copy the file path of this directory.
2. Open Windows Security and navigate to Virus & threat protection > Manage settings.
3. Disable Real-time protection. Windows will automatically re-enable this afterwards.
4. Scroll down to Add or remove exclusions and confirm if prompted.
5. Add a folder exclusion. When an explorer window opens, paste the path you copied in step 1 into the address bar and confirm.

Step 2: Installing Lovely

You're now ready to install the Lovely injector. You can follow Lovely's general instructions here, or instead follow these specific install steps for Balatro (recommended):

1. Download the latest Lovely release for Windows. This will be lovely-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip. If your browser is blocking this download, use Firefox instead.
2. Navigate to your Balatro game directory in your file explorer. This can easily be done by right-clicking the game in Steam, hovering "Manage", and selecting "Browse local files".
3. Open the .zip archive, and extract Lovely's version.dll from the archive into the game directory.
4. Launch Balatro through Steam and you should see a second window pop up alongside the game named something like Lovely x.x.x. If it does, you have installed Lovely correctly and are ready to proceed to the next section. If it does not, please make sure you have followed the previous steps correctly.

Step 3: Installing Steamodded

Once you have installed Lovely correctly, you can install Steamodded:

1. Download the latest Steamodded release by clicking "Source code (zip)" at the bottom of the page.
2. Extract the downloaded zip file.
3. In your file explorer, navigate to Balatro's save directory: %AppData%/Balatro

Important

This is different from the Lovely install directory. You can paste %AppData%/Balatro into the explorer path bar or the run dialog to open the folder. %AppData% has special meaning and you do not need to manually replace it.

Click me for Example Video

Screencast_20241231_162107.webm

4. Create a folder named Mods if it doesn't already exist. Open your Mods folder.
5. Inside the extracted zip file, you should find a single directory. Move this interior folder into your Mods folder. After moving, it should look like Mods/smods/<files>, not Mods/smods/smods/<files> or Mods/<files>.

You can now install other mods by placing them into the Mods folder next to the Steamodded/smods folder. Make sure each mod is in its own subfolder.

Common issues

Click the line describing your issue to see possible solutions.

The Lovely download failed or was blocked

• Try a different browser. Firefox is known to work. You might need to right click the download and select "allow anyways".
• Make sure you have followed the anti-virus steps correctly. It might be easiest to temporarily turn off your anti-virus entirely, and re-enable it after you have finished installing lovely.

Windows is preventing me from moving version.dll

Make sure you have followed the anti-virus steps correctly.

If using Windows Defender, make sure Real-time protection is still disabled, as it re-enables itself after some time.

If you are using any other anti-virus, it might be easier to temporarily turn off your anti-virus entirely, and re-enable it after you have finished installing Lovely.

The version.dll file gets deleted when I try to launch Balatro

Make sure you have followed the anti-virus steps correctly. In particular, make sure an exclusion/exception has been added for the Balatro game directory or for version.dll.

A second window does not appear when I launch Balatro

It sounds like Lovely has not been installed correctly. Make sure Lovely's version.dll is in the right folder (it should be in the same folder as the Balatro executable).

The second window appears, but the mods button does not show up in-game

This means Lovely has been installed correctly, but Steamodded is not installed correctly.

1. Make sure the Mods folder is in the right place (it should be under AppData/Roaming/Balatro, not under steamapps/common/Balatro).
2. Make sure the Steamodded folder is correctly nested. It should look like Mods/smods/<content>, not like Mods/smods/smods/<content> or Mods/<content>, where content is the inner files.

Steamodded is installed correctly, but my game crashes!

There is a variety of reasons this can happen. Some of the more common reasons are:

• If you have other mods installed, it's very likely those mods are crashing. Check with the developer(s) of those mods.
• Your Balatro installation could be corrupted. Try verifying your game files on Steam: Library > Balatro > Properties > Installed Files > Verify integrity of game files.
• Your Balatro version might be outdated and needs to be updated through steam. Steamodded only supports the latest Steam version of the game.
• If you're trying to continue an existing run and crashing, your run is most likely unrecoverable. Try starting a new run.

Updating Steamodded

If you'd like to update Steamodded in the future. Note that you do not need to update Steamodded or Lovely unless you're experiencing issues or new features require it.

• Check if Lovely needs to be updated. Your current version of Lovely is shown in the title of the second window when launching Balatro, and the latest version of Lovely can be found here. If Lovely does need to be updated, follow steps 1 and 2.
• Delete your current Steamodded folder. It might be named Steamodded, smods-1.0.0-beta-0711a, or something similar.
• Follow the instructions on how to install Steamodded in step 3.

Uninstalling Steamodded

Delete the version.dll file from Balatro's game directory. This will prevent Steamodded and any other mods from loading.