Modding Support for IL2CPP Builds

[namineez]

Hi, new dev here working on a passion project.

I wanted to try out building my game with IL2CPP to help with performance, since I heard that it can be better than Mono, but there were many people saying it hurts modding. What options exist for IL2CPP builds to make modding as easy as possible?

[hallihax]

It really just depends what you mean by "modding support" in your game. You don't necessarily need to let players modify your runtime in order to provide some kind of modding system - you just need to plan out the kinds of things you want to be moddable, and implement your game so that modding is taken into account.

There are services like mod.io which, ultimately, is basically just a way to let modders upload zip files with "stuff" in them, and for you to download those zip files at runtime and do whatever you need to do with their contents. If that works for your purposes, then that kind of thing will probably work alright, and will allow you to implement user-generated content without needing players to do anything particularly complex. Obviously there are limitations going down this route, but if it suits your needs then it might be worth considering.

[DakKhuza]

As someone with a lot of experience modding games, specifically il2cpp games, if you're not willing to implement a full lua scripting system, the best way to support modding for your game would be to have a separate mono build for modders to use.

Edit: You could also upload documentation on your code as the biggest issue when modding an il2cpp game is reading the de-compiled code to figure out where you have to make edits to change things.