Stellar Blade

Stellar Blade (game_id stellar-blade, Steam App ID 3489700) is one of modde’s two data-driven Unreal Engine titles, sharing the Ue4Game plugin with Subnautica 2. Its overall status is Partial: scanning, conflict classification, save tracking, deployment, OptiScaler wiring, and Wine DLL-override detection all ship and are user-reachable, but Stellar Blade does not get a bespoke installer wizard or a curated load-order model beyond UE4’s ~mods mount order, and the title is held back from the UI’s “Browse Nexus” picker (see the Nexus Mods guide). Treat it as a solid pak-mod manager for the game, not a full guided experience.

For the authoritative status row see Supported games; the capability vocabulary (Done / Partial / Not shipped) is defined there and in docs/capability-matrix.toml.

Engine and project layout

Unreal titles share a near-identical on-disk shape: a project folder under the install root (here SB/) that holds SB/Content/Paks/ for pak archives and SB/Binaries/Win64/ for the shipping executable and any proxy DLLs. Because the whole plugin is parameterised by that project short name, every path below is just <install>/SB/....

How modde detects the install

modde resolves Stellar Blade through its registered launcher IDs. Only the Steam path is wired:

• Steam — App ID 3489700, library subfolder Stellar Blade. modde walks your Steam library folders (including extra libraries from libraryfolders.vdf) to find the install root.
• Heroic (GOG/Epic) — not configured for this title; there is no Heroic GOG or Epic app ID in the registry, so Heroic auto-detection does not apply.

You can always bypass detection by passing --game-dir <path> to commands that take it (for example modde scan and modde install wabbajack), or by setting gameDir in a home-manager profile.

Proton prefix

On Linux and macOS Stellar Blade runs through Proton/Wine, so both save tracking and the UE Saved/Config deploy target read from the compatibility prefix that Steam creates at (on Windows these are native paths, no prefix involved):

<steam_root>/steamapps/compatdata/3489700/pfx/

modde derives this from the Steam common directory’s parent, then compatdata/3489700/pfx. If the prefix does not exist yet, the save directory and the ue4-saved-config deploy target both resolve to None — the expected fix is to launch the game once so Proton materialises the prefix, then retry.

Mod directory and deploy strategy

The deploy target is the standard UE pak drop folder:

<install>/SB/Content/Paks/~mods

The leading tilde in ~mods is load-bearing: UE’s pak mounter orders mount points lexically, and ~mods sorts after the shipping paks so your mods override base content. modde creates and deploys into this directory; it does not invent a custom VFS for UE titles — deployment is a real on-disk layout under Content/Paks/~mods.

A mod archive is recognised as a single-file-set install when its extracted root contains at least one .pak, .ucas, or .utoc file (InstallMethod::SingleFileSet). That is the common case for Nexus pak mods, which extract a loose Name.pak (optionally with Name.ucas / Name.utoc siblings) you drop straight into ~mods.

In addition to ~mods, the plugin exposes one named deploy target for user config:

This second target is how Engine.ini / GameUserSettings.ini style tweaks land in the right place inside the Proton prefix. It resolves to None until the prefix exists.

What scanning finds

modde scan --game stellar-blade runs the UE4 scanner, which walks two subdirectories of SB/Content/Paks/:

Within each, files are grouped by file stem across the .pak / .ucas / .utoc extensions. A Name.pak plus its Name.ucas and Name.utoc siblings collapse into a single discovered mod with mod_id = "pak/Name" and a fixed scan confidence of 0.9. The scanner reads pak archives by directory and by their grouped stems only — it does not crack open pak contents, parse asset trees, or read mod-author metadata from inside the archives.

For change-tracking, a discovered mod’s footprint is its .pak file, recorded as sb/content/paks/~mods/<stem>.pak (lower-cased). The .ucas/.utoc sidecars collapse into that same row, which keeps the mod list one-entry-per-mod even though several files back it.

# Discover already-installed Stellar Blade paks and import them into a profile
modde scan --game stellar-blade --import-to default

Conflict classification

Conflicts use the shared UE collision policy. Stellar Blade declares pak, ucas, and utoc as archive extensions, so two mods shipping the same-named pak family are a real overwrite conflict. Severities are assigned per file extension:

The same extension lists also drive mod safety classification (whether a mod is considered save-affecting versus purely cosmetic): pak, ucas, utoc, dll, and lua are treated as save-breaking/logic-altering, while png, jpg, dds, tga, and ini are treated as cosmetic. So a texture-only retexture conflicting with another texture is flagged Cosmetic, while two paks clobbering one another are Dangerous.

See Conflicts & load order for how modde presents and resolves these.

Save tracking

Save tracking is enabled for Stellar Blade (with_save_profiles(true)), and it is wired into modde’s per-profile save layer.

Location. Saves are read from the Proton prefix:

<steam_root>/steamapps/compatdata/3489700/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/SB/Saved/SaveGames

modde returns this directory only if it already exists on disk.

What is fingerprinted. The save tracker matches files by extension .sav, recursively under the save directory, with no prefix rules and no exclusions. Every matching file is captured under the default category manual, its label taken from the file stem (falling back to the relative path). Captured saves are summarised by category. Because matching is purely extension-and-recursion based, modde tracks the .sav files themselves — it does not parse Stellar Blade’s save binary format or extract in-game playtime, character, or chapter metadata.

See Save management for how captures attach to profiles.

Plugin and load-order handling

Stellar Blade has no plugin file (.esp/.esm) load order — it is not a Bethesda title. Ordering is purely the UE pak mount convention: paks in ~mods mount after base game paks, and within ~mods UE orders by name. If two mods need a deterministic order relative to each other, the lever is the pak file name (the conventional zzz_-style prefixes that sort late). modde does not synthesize or rewrite a load-order file for this game; there is no curated load order beyond what the file names express.

A separate LogicMods folder is also scanned (tagged logic-mods) for setups that keep Blueprint/logic paks distinct from content paks, but modde treats both folders uniformly as grouped pak mods.

Installer specifics

• Pak / ucas / utoc — the native format. Archives whose root contains a pak-family file install as a single file set straight into ~mods. This is the path most Nexus Stellar Blade mods take.
• FOMOD — modde’s FOMOD installer is engine-agnostic, so a mod that ships a ModuleConfig.xml can be driven through modde fomod inspect / modde fomod apply (or a declarative config). FOMOD is not Stellar Blade-specific and is uncommon for this title, but it is available when an author uses it.
• REDmod / SMAPI / BSA — not applicable. Those are Cyberpunk, Stardew, and Bethesda installer paths respectively; Stellar Blade uses none of them.

There is no bespoke Stellar Blade installer wizard — this is part of why the title is Partial. Most installs are “extract pak, deploy to ~mods”.

Gaming tools that matter

OptiScaler — the community-dxgi profile

Stellar Blade ships exactly one curated OptiScaler profile, community-dxgi (“Community tested dxgi.dll”). It is the recommended way to add modern upscaling/frame generation. Its pinned settings, straight from the registry:

The profile uses OptiPatcher to unlock the game’s DLSS and DLSS-FG inputs without spoofing a DLSS-capable GPU — so you get the DLSS/DLSS-FG code paths re-routed through OptiScaler/FSR rather than faking vendor detection. The latest_fp8 FSR4 variant with emulate_fp8 = true is what lets RDNA3-class cards run the FP8 model via emulation.

Known OptiScaler gotchas for this title (from the bundled profile notes):

• The game may crash on first boot with the proxy in place but work on the next launch — if the first launch dies, just relaunch before assuming a bad install.
• If DLSSG/frame-gen HUD elements look wrong (interpolation artifacts on the HUD), set the in-game sharpness slider to 0 as a workaround.

Enable and apply it through the tools system:

# Enable OptiScaler for Stellar Blade and select the curated profile
modde tool enable optiscaler --game stellar-blade
modde tool configure optiscaler --game stellar-blade optiscaler_profile=community-dxgi
modde tool apply optiscaler --game stellar-blade

modde tool apply writes the dxgi.dll proxy and companion files into the game’s Binaries/Win64. See Tools & overlays and the OptiScaler source selector (official releases versus GOverlay builds) documented there.

Proton, overlays, and Wine DLL overrides

The other tool IDs apply normally for this Proton game: proton (version mode, extra env, DLL-override mode), mangohud, vkbasalt, gamemode, and reshade. Because Stellar Blade runs through Wine/Proton, any native proxy DLLs you stage must be loaded native first. modde scans SB/Binaries/Win64 (and mod staging) for the common UE proxy DLL names and surfaces them as WINEDLLOVERRIDES:

dwmapi, xinput1_3, d3d11, dxgi, version, winmm, dinput8

So a UE4SS install (dwmapi), a ReShade/DLSS swapper (dxgi/d3d11), or a generic ASI loader (version/winmm) is detected and overridden automatically — the OptiScaler profile’s own dxgi.dll is exactly one of these.

Linux / Proton notes and gotchas

These notes cover the game’s runtime on Linux and macOS, where Stellar Blade runs through Proton/Wine. On Windows the game runs natively — there is no Wine prefix or WINEDLLOVERRIDES, and the save directory and config live at their native Windows locations. modde itself runs natively on all three platforms.

• Launch the game once before first deploy. The save directory and the ue4-saved-config target both live inside the Proton prefix and resolve to None until Proton has created compatdata/3489700/pfx.
• OptiScaler first-boot crash. Expected with this profile; relaunch. (See the OptiScaler section above.)
• HUD interpolation under DLSSG. Set the in-game sharpness slider to 0.
• DLL override ordering. If a proxy DLL mod is staged but not taking effect, confirm the matching WINEDLLOVERRIDES entry is present — modde derives it from the proxy name in Binaries/Win64, so the file must be the recognised name.
• Pak mount order is name-driven. There is no load-order editor; rename paks (e.g. a late-sorting prefix) when one mod must win over another.

Worked example

CLI

# 1. Discover the install (Steam App ID 3489700 / "Stellar Blade") and scan it,
#    importing what is already in ~mods into the default profile.
modde scan --game stellar-blade --import-to default

# 2. Install a pak mod from a Nexus URL into a profile.
modde install mod https://www.nexusmods.com/stellarblade/mods/<id> --profile default

# 3. Deploy the active profile into SB/Content/Paks/~mods.
modde deploy --game stellar-blade --profile default

# 4. Add upscaling/frame-gen via the curated OptiScaler profile.
modde tool enable optiscaler --game stellar-blade
modde tool configure optiscaler --game stellar-blade optiscaler_profile=community-dxgi
modde tool apply optiscaler --game stellar-blade

# 5. (Optional) Register a named external tool/executable for this game so it runs
#    with overwrite capture and the right Wine DLL overrides.
modde tool add-executable --game stellar-blade --name my-tool /path/to/tool.exe
modde exec my-tool --game stellar-blade

Home-Manager profile

The home-manager module exposes Stellar Blade as a declarative profile. The tools.optiscaler.profile option is type-checked against the registered profile list, so community-dxgi is the valid value for this game.

{
  programs.modde = {
    enable = true;
    profiles.stellar-blade-main = {
      game = "stellar-blade";

      # Auto-detected from Steam; set explicitly if your library is non-standard.
      # gameDir = "/path/to/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Stellar Blade";

      installMode = "auto";

      tools.optiscaler = {
        enable = true;
        profile = "community-dxgi";
      };
    };
  };
}

On activation modde enables, configures, and applies the OptiScaler profile for the stellar-blade game, writing the dxgi.dll proxy into SB/Binaries/Win64. Remember to launch the game once first so the Proton prefix exists.

See also

• Supported games
• Subnautica 2 — the other data-driven UE title
• Oblivion Remastered — another UE pak-based game
• Mod scanning
• Conflicts & load order
• Deployment & VFS
• Save management
• Tools & overlays
• FOMOD installer
• MO2 parity & capability audit