MHWs MOD clean and reinstall

As MHWs(Monster Hunter Wilds) may casue mod break in every TU, mod users may need to reinstall mods after every game update, this article will provide a detailed workflow about how to clean your game folder and reinstall mods.

First of all, don't reinstall game!!! don't reinstall game!!! don't reinstall game!!! that won't solve anything and is a waste of your time, steam won't touch mod files, what casued issue will still remain in your game folder.

0. The root cause

0-1. about pak files

MHWs use pak files to hold most game files, the serial number of pak will increase with game update. in the mean time, some mod may need to store some files in pak files to let the game load. when the game update, new pak files will replace old pak files installed by mods and mess up pak file load order, which means you must reinstall mods when game update.

0-2. about pfb and user files

MHWs TU usually update .pfb.18 and .user.3 files, casue some mod no longer work for new game version.

.pfb.18 files are usually used to give physics to armors that don't have originally. .user.3 files contain a lot of parameters, usually used to edit helm settings, such as show/hide hair, or reize head to avoid collission between full covered helm. thus TU will usually break armor mods.

1. Clean your game folder

first of all, we need to clean game folder and restore original game

1-1. in Fluffy Manager, click "uninstall all mods"

1-2. go to game folder, remove "natives" and "reframework" folder

you can backup "reframework/data" folder, it contain some customize data, e.g. FBS presets or script mod setings

1-3. remove extra .pak files (important)

you need to remove extra pak files with serial number larger then original files. the number will increase after every game update so I will not put a specfic number here.

as mod will not add new re_chunk_000.pak.patch_***.pak file, you can check their serial number to know original serial number of re_chunk_000.pak.sub_000.pak.patch_***.pak files.

e.g. after 2025-7-1 update, re_chunk_000.pak.patch_***.pak files end at 007, means original re_chunk_000.pak.sub_000.pak.patch_***.pak should also end at 007.

1-4. (optional) remove dinput8.dll

dinput8.dll is library file of reframework, you can remove it if you don't want to use reframework anymore, there are also some files generated by reframework, they won't affect your game without dainput8.dll, you can leave them so that you don't need to set some settings again when you reinstall reframework.

1-5. run original game to confirm it work properly

if it won't work, try verify game intergrity in steam, if you don't know how:

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/0C48-FCBD-DA71-93EB

2. Clean "Mods" folder

A lot of users leave old and new mod files together in mods folder and that may casue a lot ot trouble, your are recommended to clean your mods folder before reinstall any mod.

open your Fluffy Manager folder, browse into Games\MonsterHunterWilds\Mods

2-1. check files of same mod

sort files by name and check if there are files with similar name but with different version number, remove all old versions

2-2. check outdated files

sort files by time, check files with edit date before TU, pay more attention to armor mods, you can open files and check if there is a \natives\stm\gamedesign folder(used to hold pfb and user files), if so, it's probably outdated.

3. Reinstall mods

3-1. reinatll mods

the workflow is same as install tutorial

3-2. use Obsolete Mod Detector

after you install mods, you can use this tool to help you find mods that may be outdated

https://www.nexusmods.com/monsterhunterwilds/mods/1651

however, beware that the tool can only assume which mod may be outdated, it can help you narrow the range, but it can't prove that the mod won't work, you still need to test which mod may cause issue, or turn to mod page to check sticky comments, user replies and updates.