Dominic Hock

Posted on Jun 22, 2025

Why Is Game Mod Management Still So Cumbersome in 2025?

A look at the problem, and an open-source solution: TotalControl

Hey everyone 👋
I’m Dominic, a passionate gamer and fan of open-source projects. Like many of you, I’ve spent countless hours modding games — and just as many hours fighting the tools we’re forced to use. From clunky Windows-only apps to platforms that ignore gamepads entirely, I kept wondering...

Why isn’t there a good, open-source, cross-platform mod manager in 2025?

So, I built one.
🚨 This post is an ad for my open-source application called TotalControl — but it’s also a breakdown of the modding ecosystem’s current pain points and how we can start fixing them.

💥 Why Is Mod Management Still So Painful?

If you’ve ever modded games like Skyrim or Stardew Valley, you know the routine:

Hunt down the mod files
Manually unpack or install them
Edit text configs
Hope it doesn’t crash
Repeat for updates

Even popular tools like Vortex or Mod Organizer have major flaws:
🔒 Windows-only, 💸 ads or subscriptions, 🧷 locked into an eco-system, 🧍‍♂️ no controller support.
That’s a huge problem in 2025, especially with Steam Deck and couch-gaming on the rise.

❓ Why Isn’t There a Cross-Platform, Multi-Game Mod Manager?

Here’s why this problem persists:

Most tools are Windows-first
- They rely on .NET, WinForms, or native Windows APIs — making porting to Linux/macOS non-trivial.
Hard-coded support
- Most managers are tailored to specific games (Skyrim, Fallout, Satisfactory), and adding others means trying to change their foundation.
Lack of modularity
- Very few are designed to be plugin-first or sandboxed for safety.
Controller unawareness
- Despite the popularity of Steam Deck and other handheld PCs, gamepad navigation is an afterthought (if considered at all).

🤷‍♂️ Why Is NexusMods Still the Only Multi-Game Mod Manager?

Vortex from NexusMods is technically a multi-game mod manager — but it’s built entirely around their own platform.
Let’s be honest: Vortex is not the answer for everyone.

✅ It supports many games
❌ It’s Windows-only, written in .NET
❌ It’s user-extendable but honestly it’s a pain.
❌ It’s heavily tied into the NexusMods website (which means mod downloads are platform-locked and account-gated)
❌ It has no gamepad support
❌ It's bloated with ads unless you pay

If you want to install mods outside of windows — or want something lighter, faster, and more transparent — you're on your own.

🎮 Introducing: TotalControl

TotalControl is (hopefully) my answer to all of this.

🛠️ A cross-platform, controller-first, plugin-based mod manager — 100% open source under the AGPL-v3 license.

You can think of it as the Visual Studio Code of mod managers: the core does nothing by default — everything is built with plugins.

🌟 Features at a Glance

✅ Cross-platform — Windows, Linux, macOS
🎮 Full controller support — navigate with a gamepad
🧩 Modular & extensible — Lua plugins for game support
🖼️ Modern UI — built with Vue.js + TypeScript
🔐 Safe & sandboxed — plugins declare capabilities
💻 No ads, no tracking, no subscriptions
💬 Built in public — solo-developed, early alpha, contributions welcome!

⚙️ Why I Chose The Technologies Used

Business Logic:
I chose Go (Golang) for the core logic due to its:

Excellent cross-compilation support
Strong performance and concurrency model
Clean and readable structure for large applications

Frontend:
I’m using Vue.js with TypeScript, powered by the Wails framework.
Why Wails?

Native performance without Electron bloat
Small binary size
Seamless Go + JS interop

Plugin System: Lua
I picked Lua because it's:

Lightweight and embeddable
Already popular in game development (e.g., Factorio, WoW, Garry’s Mod)
Easy to learn and script with, even for non-devs
Doesn’t require compilation or external dependencies

Each plugin lives in a sandbox and explicitly declares what it can access — like mod directories or web APIs — making the system safe by design.

🔌 Example: The Factorio Testing Plugin

Here’s an example game plugin. This one could add support for Factorio — managing installed mods, downloading new ones, and even reading mod-list.json.
plugin.json

{
  "id": "com.github.subtixx.factorio",
  "name": "Factorio",
  "description": "Enables managing Factorio mods and saves.",
  "entry": "plugin.lua",
  "capabilities": {
    "filesystem": {
      "path_whitelist": ["$HOME/.factorio/*"]
    },
    "network": {
      "url_whitelist": [
        "https://mods.factorio.com/*",
        "https://api.mod.io/*"
      ]
    }
  },
  "functionality": [
    "mod_management",
    "save_game_management"
  ]
}

plugin.lua (snippet)

function readModListFile(plugin)
    local mod_list_file = io.getFileContent(plugin:GetGameModDirectory() .. "mod-list.json")
    if mod_list_file == nil or mod_list_file == "" then return {} end
    local mod_list = json.decode(mod_list_file)
    local mod_ids = {}
    for _, mod in ipairs(mod_list.mods or {}) do
        mod_ids[mod.name] = mod.enabled or false
    end
    return mod_ids
end

function loadModsFromApi()
    local response = http.get("https://mods.factorio.com/api/mods")
    if response and response.status_code == 200 then
        local data = json.decode(response.body)
        cache.set("factorio_mods", data)
        return data
    end
    return {}
end

return {
    mods = loadModsFromApi(),
    GetInstalledMods = function(self)
        local mod_list = readModListFile(self)
        local mod_files = io.getFilesInDirectory(self:GetGameModDirectory(), { "*.zip" })
        local mods = {}
        for _, file in ipairs(mod_files) do
            local info = json.decode(io.readFileFromZip(file, ".*?/info\\.json"))
            mods[#mods + 1] = {
                id = info.name,
                name = info.title or info.name,
                version = info.version,
                description = info.description or "",
                author = info.author or "Unknown",
                file_path = file,
                enabled = mod_list[info.name] or false,
                game_id = "factorio"
            }
        end
        return mods
    end,
    GetGameModDirectory = function()
        if os.is_windows then
            return io.pathJoin(os.getenv("APPDATA"), "Factorio", "mods")
        elseif os.is_linux then
            return io.pathJoin(os.getenv("HOME"), ".factorio", "mods")
        elseif os.is_macos then
            return io.pathJoin(os.getenv("HOME"), "Library", "Application Support", "factorio", "mods")
        end
    end
}

🧪 Current Status: Alpha Phase

As of writing, TotalControl is still early-stage — here’s what works:

✅ Plugin system
✅ Mock frontend
✅ plugin to test scripting functionality
🚫 No real UI ↔ backend integration yet
🚫 No mod install/update workflows yet
🚫 No plugin sandbox
🚫 No capability system

But it’s a solid foundation. And yes — I’m doing this solo, just a gamer and developer with a dream and a keyboard.

🙋‍♂️ A Personal Note

I’ll be honest — putting this out there makes me nervous as hell. I often look at my own code and ideas and think they’re garbage, or that no one will care. Imposter syndrome is real, and it’s loud. But despite that, I care deeply about making good tools and sharing them, even if they’re not perfect. TotalControl is my way of trying anyway — and if you find it useful, that already means the world to me.

👐 Want to Help?

Check out the repo:
👉 github.com/subtixx/total-control

💬 File issues, request features
🧩 Write plugins for your favorite games
🧪 Test it on your setup
⭐ Star the repo to support it!

This isn’t just about one project — it’s about modernizing how we mod games. Together, we can make it platform-agnostic, user-friendly, and open.

Thanks for reading — and happy modding! 🎮
— Dominic

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