Mod Builder Overview

The Mod Builder is Arsenal’s integrated development environment for creating Helldivers 2 mod packs. It provides a visual interface for structuring mods, managing options, and generating the required manifest files.

Important: This documentation covers Arsenal’s Mod Builder, which helps you generate the manifest.json file needed for mods to work correctly with Arsenal and Helldivers 2 Mod Manager . If you want to actually create Helldivers 2 mods (textures, models, animations, etc.), you need to follow the Helldivers 2 Modding Wiki .

Key Feature: The Mod Builder’s main advantage is its automatic manifest generation. When you add folders or subfolders to your project structure, the Mod Builder automatically generates and updates the corresponding manifest.json code. This eliminates the need to manually write the entire manifest file, making mod creation much faster and less error-prone.

Interface Layout

The Mod Builder is divided into two main panels:

Left Panel — Mod Structure

A tree view displaying your mod’s folder structure:

Option Folder
├── Sub-Option Folder
│   └── patch_file.patch_0
├── another_file.patch_0
└── preview.png
root_file.patch_0
manifest.json

• Folders — Represent mod options
• Subfolders — Represent sub-options
• Files — Patch files and images
• manifest.json — Auto-generated and updated based on folder structure

Right Panel — Manifest Editor

A JSON editor for the manifest.json with:

• Syntax highlighting
• Real-time validation
• Line numbers
• Save status indicator

Toolbar Actions

Context Menus

Right-click different areas for context-specific actions:

On File Explorer Background

• Add Folder
• Add Files
• Set Mod Icon

On Option Folder

• Add Sub Folder
• Add Files
• Set Option Image
• Rename Folder
• Delete Folder

On Sub-Option Folder

• Add File
• Set Sub-Option Image
• Rename Sub Folder
• Delete Sub Folder

On File

• Delete File

Keyboard Shortcuts