Banished mod support update – Still work to be done but looks promising

Luke Hodorowicz hit the Banished developer blog to bring a lengthy update on the status of mod support.

Mod support in the medieval city builder / survival title has been one of the most requested features from players since prior to launch but it’s not quite there yet. In his latest developer update Luke explained the process he’s been working through to get the mod support ready for release.

There have been issue to work around for the single tool that compiles all the game’s resources into the binary format Banished uses, one of the main issues being multiple mod support for the game and the tool. Luke says that he has been working on this and now mods can be loaded and unloaded at any time.

He says that there are still “some details to attend to” before the mod support is complete however such as making some of the data such as professions and inventory “dynamic” in nature to stop different mods conflicting with each other.  Achievements can also be affected by mods and this also has to be taken into consideration.

So how will the mod tool ship out to users? Luke added:

“The mod kit will ship with most of the original game data, to show how things are put together, and to allow game rebalances or full texture and model changes. I guess I also need to make some example mods and write some basic documentation.”

Banished is crying out for user generated content to expand the foundations of the game and although it’s taking some time to complete at least we know it’s getting a lot closer to being a reality.