Mod Engine 2 is the most widely used mod loader for Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3, and a few other FromSoftware titles. Unlike older mod loaders that copy files directly into your game’s install folder, Mod Engine 2 works as a self-contained launcher, which actually makes it one of the easier tools to remove completely once you know where it lives on your system.
Why this uninstall is simpler than it looks
Mod Engine 2, maintained on GitHub by the soulsmods collective, does not extract into your Elden Ring installation folder, and it never touches the game’s original files. It lives in whatever folder you extracted it to when you first downloaded it, which could be your desktop, a dedicated mods folder, or anywhere else you chose. Everything it needs, the launcher itself, its configuration file, and your mod folder, stays together in that one location. This means uninstalling is really just a matter of finding that folder and deleting it, rather than hunting through your game directory for scattered files.
Step 1: Close Elden Ring and Mod Engine 2 completely
Before deleting anything, make sure nothing is still running that could lock the files you’re trying to remove.
- Exit Elden Ring if it’s currently open.
- Open Task Manager with Ctrl, Shift, and Esc.
- Look for any process related to Mod Engine 2, such as
modengine2_launcher.exe. - Right-click it and select End Task if it’s still running.
Step 2: Find your Mod Engine 2 folder
Since Mod Engine 2 isn’t inside your Steam or Epic Games install, you’ll need to locate wherever you originally extracted it. A few things to look for in that folder:
launchmod_eldenring.bat, the file you’ve been double-clicking to start the game with mods active- A
.tomlconfiguration file, typically named something likeconfig_eldenring.toml - A
modfolder containing the individual mods you’ve installed
If you don’t remember where you put it, right-click the shortcut or batch file you use to launch modded Elden Ring and select “Open file location,” which will take you straight there.
Step 3: Delete the Mod Engine 2 folder
Once you’ve found it, deleting the entire folder removes the launcher, your configuration, and every installed mod in one step, since all three live together.
If you’d rather keep some mods for later instead of deleting everything, you can skip removing the mod subfolder specifically and just hold onto it separately, since that folder isn’t tied to the rest of the installation in any way that would cause problems.
Step 4: Go back to launching the game normally
Since Mod Engine 2 runs through its own launcher rather than modifying Elden Ring itself, switching back to a vanilla setup just means launching the game directly from Steam or the Epic Games Launcher again instead of using the .bat file. There’s no separate step needed to “restore” the normal launch method, since it was never replaced to begin with.
One thing worth knowing: Mod Engine 2 forces the game into offline mode while it’s active, since Elden Ring’s anti-cheat does not allow modified sessions to connect online. Once you’re launching normally again, online play and matchmaking work exactly as they did before you ever installed mods.
Step 5: Verify game files as a precaution
Because Mod Engine 2 never modifies your actual game installation, running a file verification isn’t strictly necessary the way it would be for a mod loader that does touch game files. Still, it’s a reasonable final check if you want peace of mind.
Steam: Library, right-click Elden Ring, Properties, Local Files, Verify Integrity of Game Files. If the game still won’t launch correctly afterward, Steam Support has dedicated Elden Ring troubleshooting beyond just file verification.
Epic Games: Library, click the three dots next to Elden Ring, select Verify. Epic Games Support covers the same kind of launch issues for their platform specifically.
A note on save files
Your save data lives in AppData\Roaming\EldenRing and has nothing to do with Mod Engine 2’s own files. Removing Mod Engine 2 does not touch your saves, and you don’t need to back anything up specifically because of this uninstall, though backing up saves before any modding session is generally good practice regardless of which tool you’re using.
Removing individual mods without uninstalling the loader
If you just want to drop a specific mod rather than remove Mod Engine 2 entirely, delete that mod’s specific subfolder from inside your mod folder, or set its enabled value to false in the .toml configuration file if you’d rather keep the files around and just turn it off temporarily.
Conclusion
Mod Engine 2’s self-contained design, everything living in one folder outside your game directory, makes a full uninstall considerably simpler than tools that inject files throughout an install. Closing the game and Task Manager processes first, deleting the single folder where you extracted Mod Engine 2, and switching back to launching the game directly are really the only steps that matter. Verifying game files afterward is optional rather than necessary, since nothing in your actual Elden Ring installation was ever changed in the first place.
For current releases and setup documentation, the official Mod Engine 2 repository is maintained directly by its developers and is the most reliable source if anything changes after this guide was written. If you run into launch issues on the game side after removing mods, Steam Support and Epic Games Support both have dedicated troubleshooting for Elden Ring specifically.