My Cyberpunk 2077 Mod Loadout

I'll be honest about my bias up front. I'm used to Call of Duty. My hands expect guns that snap and movement that flows, not a sprint that feels like you're pushing a shopping cart.

The first time I tried Cyberpunk 2077, I hated how stiff the gunplay felt. Not the city, not the story. The guns. So I put it down.

This time around I'm playing it on Steam, on the 2.3x version of the game, and I went into it planning to mod the parts that bugged me. I pulled everything from Nexus Mods back in August. Here's the loadout, plus a plain-English tour of the plumbing underneath it, because half of a Cyberpunk mod list is frameworks, and nobody explains what they're for.

The mods I actually wanted

Gunplay and movement, the whole reason I'm here:

• Reflex Engine, a movement overhaul. This is my answer to "why does V feel heavy?"
• Weapons Improved plus its Grenades add-on, for the gun feel itself.

Cars, because it's Night City:

• The Wobbler, a monowheel. Yes, a one-wheeled bike. I needed it.
• Virtual Car Dealer, which lets you buy mod-added vehicles through the in-game dealer site instead of spawning them with a console command.
• Nitrous, which does what it says.

Looks and quality of life:

• HD Reworked Project, a texture overhaul for the parts of the city you're staring at up close.
• Holo Memories, which swaps the ads on the holo displays in V's apartments for photos from V's own story, unlocking as you progress. Small touch. I like small touches.
• No Intro Videos, so I'm not sitting through logos every launch.

This isn't a review of each mod. Some of these are the kind of thing you only judge after a lot of hours. What I can tell you is how the pieces fit together.

The frameworks, explained like you're an admin

Most of the mods above don't run on their own. They sit on top of a small stack of community frameworks. If you've ever managed dependencies on a server, this will feel familiar.

Framework	What it does
RED4ext	The native plugin loader. It hooks into the game at launch and loads compiled DLL plugins. Several of the other frameworks on this list are themselves RED4ext plugins, so it's close to the bottom of the stack.
redscript	A compiler for the game's own scripting language. Mods ship .reds files, and redscript compiles them into the game's script data when it starts. If a script mod is broken or out of date, this is usually where you'll see the error.
Cyber Engine Tweaks (CET)	Adds a Lua scripting layer and an in-game overlay (you pick the hotkey the first time it runs). Lots of mods use it for settings menus, and it's handy on its own for tweaks and debugging.
ArchiveXL	Lets mods add new resources, like items, appearances, and vehicles, without overwriting the game's original archive files. That's what keeps two mods from stomping on the same asset.
TweakXL	Lets mods change TweakDB, the game's big database of records (item stats, weapon values, vehicle definitions). Gameplay mods lean on it heavily.
Codeware	A library that extends what redscript mods can do. Think of it as a shared toolbox so every mod author doesn't reinvent the same functions.
Audioware	An audio framework, so mods can add or replace sounds.
Input Loader	Lets mods register their own keybinds through config files instead of fighting over the game's input settings.

Install order and sanity checks

Frameworks first, mods second. That's the whole rule, really. A sensible order is RED4ext and redscript, then CET, then ArchiveXL, TweakXL, Codeware, Audioware and the input loader, and only then the actual mods.

A few habits that keep this sane:

• Read the Requirements tab on every Nexus page. Each mod lists exactly which frameworks it needs. Holo Memories, for example, wants redscript, Codeware and ArchiveXL. Skip one and it either silently does nothing or throws an error at startup.
• Launch after each batch, not after everything. If you drop in fifteen mods and the game won't start, you've got fifteen suspects. Add the frameworks, launch, confirm CET's overlay shows up. Then add mods a few at a time.
• Know where the logs are. RED4ext, redscript and CET all write logs inside the game folder. When something breaks, the answer is almost always in one of them, usually a version mismatch.

Check versions after every game patch

Warning

This is the one that bites people. The frameworks, especially RED4ext and CET, hook into specific game internals. When CD Projekt pushes an update, those hooks can break, and the game will either crash on launch or load without your mods.

So after any patch: check the Nexus page for each framework before you play, and update them in the same order you installed them.

Tip

If you'd rather not get surprised, Steam's per-game update setting can hold updates until you launch the game, which at least puts the timing in your hands.

The real test is simple: does the game still feel stiff? That's the question the Reflex Engine and Weapons Improved picks are there to answer.

If you're into this kind of thing, I did the same exercise for an older game in Modding Shadow of Mordor in 2026. Very different plumbing, same idea.