Rimworld: The Best Medieval Mods

Turn RimWorld into a medieval paradise with these mods!
Odin Odin (181)
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If you’ve yet to play RimWorld, you’re missing out on one of the best 2D gaming experiences of the century. Massively addicting; it’s part building game, part Dwarf Fortress, part Sims. The mods, however, are what make it so fantastic. On its own, the base game is enjoyable, if somewhat limited. But as a platform from which to launch your own unique gaming experience, it really is the best.

The base RimWorld game reads a little like a cross between an Ian M. Banks novel and Firefly. In a vast universe, you are in control of the lives of a number of pawns on a “RimWorld”, a planet far from the core of civilization. All ages of technology coincide on these planets, and the struggle for survival can be harsh as you seek to overcome obstacles like solar storms, plagues, and hoards of man-hunting rabbits.

There are tons of mods you can add to the game for a superb experience, but one of my favorite ways to dig into RimWorld is through the use of mods that alter the theme to a medieval aesthetic. In this way, almost everything in the game can be altered so that you get the immersive feeling of setting up a small medieval community and watching it grow, whilst trying to stay out of the way of the big kingdoms that are duking it out across the map in a titanic feudal power struggle.

Note: the expansions are totally necessary for many of these mods.

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Mod Manager
Mod Manager

Mod Manager isn’t a medieval mod, specifically, but trust me, you’ll want to use it to organize your mods.

Harmony & HugsLib
Harmony & HugsLib

Harmony is just a library mod that other mods use as a reference to get cool things done. You’re going to need it for many of the mods that you want to use, so just load it up.

You’ll also want to grab HugsLib while you’re at it. Another library mod that’s required for even more mods, this is another no-brainer if you want to have any mods active at all.

Allow Tool
Allow Tool

Allow Tool is a must for any RimWorld playthrough. The base game doesn’t handle some things very well, but Allow Tool opens up a wide dimension of easy control for your little colony.

Beautiful Outdoors
Beautiful Outdoors

Beautiful Outdoors is another quality of life mod. Normally, your pawns get really sick of being outside, but this helps change their perceptions of nature — important for an overhaul that has them in the great outdoors a lot!

Blueprints
Blueprints

Blueprints is one of the best mods for helping you build your little colony in a timely fashion, without having to micromanage quite so much. Just set a template room up, copy it, and paste it whenever you need to build the same sort of room again!

Bridgello
Bridgello

Bridgello is a great mod aesthetically, but it’s also just plain useful, giving you a great way to build all-important bridges across bodies of water.

Camping Tent
Camping Tent

Camping Tent just makes sense. Why don’t the pawns in RimWorld ever have an intermediate space between indoor living and being naked in a rainstorm? Tents solve everything, and make a ton of sense for a medieval game.

Caravan Adventures
Caravan Adventures

Caravan Adventures is super cool. Not only does it add some new features to the caravaning process, it also adds a great storyline that perks the whole experience up.

Caravan Mood Buff
Caravan Mood Buff

Caravan Mood Buff is vital if you actually want to enjoy having your pawns go out on adventures. Without this, they’re ridiculously grumpy all the time.

Character Editor
Character Editor

Character Editor is totally a quality of life mod, but it’s pretty essential under most circumstances, especially if you want to control the aesthetic flavor of your playthrough.

Common Sense
Common Sense

Common Sense seems like a good idea, right? So many of the pawns’ behavior in the base game comes across as idiotic—only existing for the sake of making the game hard. This solves that, helping pawns actually act intelligently.

Dreamer's Dreams
Dreamer's Dreams

Dreamer's Dreams brings dreams and nightmares to your pawns, adding a lot of wonderful depth to their little pawn lives.

Faction Customizer
Faction Customizer

Faction Customizer is entirely vital for an aesthetic playthrough as it gives you the ability to micromanage how all the factions appear and function in the game.

Faction Manager
Faction Manager

Faction Manager makes it possible to really expand and build beyond a single colony. This way, you can freeze one colony and go found another, freeing you from having to micromanage multiple colonies at the same time. This means you can spread your empire across the world!

Fortifications - Neolithic
Fortifications - Neolithic

Fortifications - Neolithic offers a ton of neolithic fortification options, dramatically broadening your defensive possibilities in a low-tech setting.

Fortifications - Medieval
Fortifications - Medieval

Fortifications - Medieval brings awesome medieval fortifications to the game, allowing you to build the defensive keep or castle of your dreams!

Fortifications - Medieval - Material
Fortifications - Medieval - Material

Fortifications - Medieval - Material is the second module in the medieval fortifications series, and it’s great! Adds a bunch of options for early gameplay and more.

Giddy-up!
Giddy-up!

Giddy-up! is an amazing series of mods that really makes a medieval playthrough possible. After all, what would a medieval game be like if you couldn’t have your knight riding to battle on the back of a horse? There are a few mods in the Giddy-up! Line-up that you’ll want to have, though, so make sure to grab them all.

Go the F*** to Sleep
Go the F*** to Sleep

Go the F*** to Sleep is a simple mod that ensures you can tell colonists to go to sleep when YOU need them to. Honestly, nothing would get done around here if you didn’t micromanage it.

Guards For Me
Guards For Me

Guards For Me super useful if you want your castle to actually be defended properly. This way, you can have your soldiers patrolling while your other pawns work hard on building your new palace throne room.

Medieval Overhaul
Medieval Overhaul

Medieval Overhaul concentrates on fulfilling all your medieval playthrough dreams, adding tons of clever little features and generally overhauling the experience to one that feels truly medieval.

Medieval Empire Overhaul
Medieval Empire Overhaul

Medieval Empire Overhaul takes the super-advanced “Empire” faction from Royalty and alters it so that it fits the medieval aesthetic. Now you can actually feel like you’re undertaking diplomatic efforts with a powerful kingdom of the dark ages! This requires Medieval Overhaul to run.

MendAndRecycle
MendAndRecycle

MendAndRecycle just makes sense, but especially for people in a medieval setting! Not being able to repair things in the base setting always seemed a bit silly, and now this gets rectified!

More Than Capable
More Than Capable

More Than Capable helps your pawns actually tackle the harsh world around them. Sure, they might not be good at things, but when push comes to shove they just need to get to work! This makes even more sense in a setting that’s supposed to be medieval!

No Random Relations
No Random Relations

No Random Relations just helps ensure that random relationship incidents don’t mess up the really fun medieval experience that you’re going for.

RPG Style Inventory Revamped
RPG Style Inventory Revamped

RPG Style Inventory Revamped turns the management of a pawns gear into something resembling a classic RPG experience, perfect for the medieval D&D vibe!

Realistic Rooms Rewritten
Realistic Rooms Rewritten

Realistic Rooms Rewritten makes so much sense with any playthrough, but far more sense when you’re setting out to play a medieval run. You can even control the size of the rooms further through the mod menu. Since I always thought the room size requirements for pawn happiness were wonky, this is a must have mod for me.

Rimedieval - Medieval Conversion
Rimedieval - Medieval Conversion

Rimedieval - Medieval Conversion is totally brilliant because it patches other mods, and certain aspects of the game (like the end quest) to keep them all in line with a medieval aesthetic. That way you can enjoy your favorite mods without having immersion-breaking additions.

Vanilla Fishing Expanded
Vanilla Fishing Expanded

Vanilla Fishing Expanded is a necessity to provide additional food sources since some are eliminated by the lack of more advanced tech.

Supersonic's Medieval Tweaks
Supersonic's Medieval Tweaks

Supersonic's Medieval Tweaks does what it says: it tweaks a bunch of minor content points to help provide a better medieval experience.

Babies and Children
Babies and Children

Babies and Children is essential for a medieval RimWorld playthrough. Now you can have a real dynasty form, and, if you use one of the aging or time-alteration mods, you could even watch entire generations of your little kingdom drift by. Make sure to read the page for this mod, it has instructions for a couple of required mods you’ll need to install alongside.

Medieval Medicines
Medieval Medicines

Medieval Medicines widens the medical possibilities so you’re not stuck up the old crick without a paddle next time infection sets in.

Medieval Prosthetics
Medieval Prosthetics

Medieval Prosthetics opens a new realm of prosthetic possibility for your wounded pawns, without breaking the medieval flavor!

Entosomnia - Medieval Cryptosleep
Entosomnia - Medieval Cryptosleep

Entosomnia - Medieval Cryptosleep . A sarcophagus filled with insect jelly and lined with intricate arcane conduits allows for indefinite suspension of living beings. Medieval cryptosleep replacement.

Quarry
Quarry

Quarry allows you to collect rocks and resources even if you spawned your kingdom on a map tile without hills and mountains! Pretty important, since stone is going to be your main construction element.

Geothermal Coolers
Geothermal Coolers

Geothermal Coolers makes playing in a medieval setting far more possible. Without a method to cool your food, your have to do some pretty weird workarounds, or resort to installing one of the magic mods that offers cooling crystals. This is a nice middle ground.

Standalone Hot Spring
Standalone Hot Spring

Standalone Hot Spring allows you to use your hot springs for a whole different purpose: keeping your pawns happy and healthy!

Medieval drug lab
Medieval drug lab

Medieval drug lab is a tiny patch that makes the drug lab accessible even if another mod has locked it out for being too high a tech level. Important!

Pure Medieval Soundtrack
Pure Medieval Soundtrack

Pure Medieval Soundtrack provides over 40 brand new music tracks by the masterful Alexander Nakrada. These tracks are all original, and all fall under the creative commons 4.0 copyright law.

Medieval Cross-Functionality Patches+
Medieval Cross-Functionality Patches+

Medieval Cross-Functionality Patches+ offers compatibility for a bunch of medieval mods, and I highly recommend using it!

What are your favorite medieval mods?
What are your favorite medieval mods?

There are so many brilliant mods out there for RimWorld, and it can get pretty overwhelming to install them all, but hopefully this list helps get you started on your next grand adventure.

I know there are probably tons of mods that I’ve missed, so go ahead and let me know in the comments what your favorite medieval mods are for RimWorld. What do you think I should have added?

Some mods can change the world.
Odin Odin (181)
0

Video game “modding” (the process of modifying a game’s content after its release) has a long history, with early games like DOOM featuring all manner of mods created by a dedicated community.