How to open .archive files and take a look inside
This guide will walk you through analysing or extracting .archive files from tutorial resources or other mods.
Please keep in mind that you are looking at somebody else's work. Always credit if you use anything from other peoples' mods, unless it's explicitly stated that you don't have to!
Some modders don't want their mods to be unbundled. Most people don't mind if you do it for your own personal use, but you should seek permission and respect their decision.
For a documentation on how to use Wolvenkit CLI, see here. Unless you have a very good reason to use the console, you probably don't want to.
If you want to edit files, you need a . If you don't know how to make one, you can check R&R: Your own Wolvenkit project
Once you have installed the mod or added it to your , you can use Wolvenkit's to browse it:
You can now add the content to your project like regular game files.
If you can't (because everything is scrambled), check #troubleshooting.
The folders in the mod browser correspond to the names of the .archive files you have installed.
E.g., To find all .mlsetup (colour definition) files inside the Netrunning Suits mod, search for:
If you want all mesh files from the Custom T-Shirt Mod, search for
Select the file that you want to add by checking the box. Then right-click on it, and click on the Add selected items to project option.
That's it! You now have the file in your mod project and can start editing.
Make sure that you actually have a Wolvenkit project opened (you will see the project name in the top-right corner next to the close button). Can't add files to a project if there's no project!
You have found a mod that is not compatible with the current hashing algorithm. Long (and sad) story short, from time to time that needs an update, and then anything packed with a different version of the algorithm won't resolve anymore.
You can try opening the .archive with Wolvenkit 8.9 or 8.7 - anything older will be incompatible with game versions >= 1.6.
You can check for how to find and filter everything.
f you want to know more, you can read up on .
Some authors don't want other people to look at their files and deliberately corrupt their archives to prevent Wolvenkit from reading them. The game is a lot more robust than WKit, so these mods usually work, although side effects can't be ruled out. If none of this works, you can still look at the files and their properties in the and try to guess what's what. Other than that, you're out of luck, though.
Unbundling mods with CLI
This technique is outdated as of 2023. If you don't have a very good reason why you need Wolvenkit console, then you should stick to the GUI.
You need to download the WolvenKit.Console version for this, rather than the regular one.
Optional, but recommended: Make sure that your downloaded .archive is inside a folder with no other items.
Open WIndows Command (press Windows+R and type cmd, then press enter).
Drag and drop WolvenKit.cli.exe into the command window
Type a space
Type unbundle -p
Type another space
Drag and drop the archive you downloaded into the command window.
You will now see something like
If your paths contain spaces or special characters, make sure that they are surrounded by quotation marks as in the example above, or the command will fail.
If you press enter now, WolvenKit will unpack the archive, putting the contents into the same directory.
You can now copy the extracted folders to your WolvenKit project's archive folder.
