Quick answer
What you no longer need a mod for
Since patch 0.1.5 (2026-07-02), Paralives lets you edit a Para's appearance for free from any mirror, the hospital or the pharmacy, toggle every mod on or off with one button, and put custom images on mugs, rugs, skateboards, curtains, cushions and flags. Patch 0.1.6 (2026-07-16) brought custom images to Mac. None of that needs a mod anymore.
Absorbed by patches
What each patch made official
Every entry below is confirmed in the official patch notes. “Partial” means the official feature covers the core demand but a mod still adds something on top.
Edit appearance after creation — no mod needed
What the patch added: Patch 0.1.5 lets any mirror, the hospital and the pharmacy reopen the Paramaker for free — everything in it except labels, personalities and lifestages.
Whose demand it covers: This was exactly what Customize Para After Creation was installed for: it had climbed to the fourteenth most-subscribed Workshop item of all time by offering the same re-editing through a dresser, closet or mirror.
Customize Para After Creation by Cochonou Sponsored — 69,831 subscribers, #14 most-subscribed of all time when checked on 2026-07-27.
Still not built in: Labels, personalities and lifestages stay locked in the official editor — the EDITCHARACTER cheat covers that gap (how editing after creation works). The mod's dresser and closet entry points also remain unique to the mod.
Enable or disable all mods at once
What the patch added: Patch 0.1.5 added enable-all and disable-all buttons to the in-game Mods menu.
Whose demand it covers: Bulk toggling used to mean managing files outside the game — renaming folders or moving mod files by hand. No single named mod did this, so none is credited; the workflow itself is what the patch replaced.
Custom images on six more object types
What the patch added: Patch 0.1.5 extended custom images to mugs, rugs, skateboards, curtains, cushions and flags.
Whose demand it covers: Putting your own images on objects was the main use case of image-based custom-content mods. The built-in feature now covers those surfaces directly.
Custom images on Mac
What the patch added: Patch 0.1.6 brought custom images to the Mac version, closing the platform gap the 0.1.5 change had left.
Whose demand it covers: The same image-CC use case as above — Mac players no longer need a workaround for it.
Lifespan length — three presets built in
What the patch added: Not a patch: the base game has shipped with three lifespan presets — Short, Normal and Long — since the Early Access launch.
Whose demand it covers: Choosing how long Paras live is the core demand behind Better Lifespans, and the native presets cover it.
Better Lifespans by wrecknrule — 62,067 subscribers when checked on 2026-07-27.
Still not built in: The mod adds three more durations (Extra Short, Longer, Extra Long) and lets you tune the day count of each life stage individually. If you play long generational saves, that granularity is still mod-only.
Not yet
The big QoL mods still not built in
Patch 0.1.6 fixed a small camera annoyance (edge scrolling on multi-monitor setups) but did not touch what the camera and map mods do. The five most-subscribed quality-of-life mods are all still worth installing:
- Sensible Camera Control160,054 subscribers
- Crystal Clear Map View123,193 subscribers
- Invite to Current Lot119,269 subscribers
- Display Townies on Map104,291 subscribers
- Zoom out more!99,391 subscribers
Subscriber counts and rankings come from our best-mods shortlist, last reviewed 2026-07-27 and next due 2026-10-27. See the full ranked list
Workshop itself
Patch timeline: the mod system, not the mods
Separate from absorbing mod features, these patches fixed the Workshop experience itself — the same timeline shown on the Workshop hub.
- 0.1.62026-07-16Localization and translation fixes — if you run a community translation mod, re-check it against the updated strings.
- 0.1.52026-07-02Save-system overhaul: new saves drop from ~500MB to ~30MB, three rolling autosaves, Steam Cloud sync. Modded saves benefit too — back up before switching.
- 0.1.42026-06-18A 'Loading mods…' screen now shows when launching with mods (previously the game looked frozen). Creators also get better Workshop tags.
- 0.1.32026-06-06Fixed the issue that capped a game at 50 Steam Workshop mods; the in-game font now covers more characters so translation mods can ship more languages.
FAQ
- Do I still need Customize Para After Creation?
- For appearance only, no — since 0.1.5 any mirror, the hospital or the pharmacy reopens the Paramaker for free. The mod still adds dresser and closet entry points, and neither it nor the patch touches labels, personalities or lifestages (the EDITCHARACTER cheat does).
- Is Better Lifespans obsolete now?
- No. The base game's Short, Normal and Long presets cover changing how long Paras live, but the mod's three extra durations and per-stage day tuning have no native equivalent.
- A mod I use was replaced by a patch — should I uninstall it?
- If the patch covers everything you installed it for, uninstalling keeps your mod list lean and avoids conflicts after future patches. If it still adds something (check the “partial” entries above), keep it.
- Will more mods be absorbed by future patches?
- Likely — 0.1.5 absorbed several demands at once, and the studio's patches keep pulling community workarounds into the base game. This page is re-checked after every patch.
Keep reading
Related guides
Best mods
The 15 most-subscribed quality-of-life mods, each with author, subscriber count and a verification date.
Mods not working
Symptom-by-symptom mod troubleshooting, each paired with the official patch that fixed it.
How to install mods
Subscribing on the Steam Workshop, load order and the in-game Mods menu.
How to open the cheat console
Ctrl+F1 on Windows, Cmd+F1 on Mac — for the EDITCHARACTER gap the patches left.
Checked against the official patch notes 0.1.5–0.1.6b on 2026-08-02.