To be able to modify the game's .pak files you'll need an archive manager.

Anything that can open up .rar files to view, extract and add to the archive should work, however these are .pak files. So for this guide I'll be using WinRAR as I'm familiar with it.

If you've not got an archive manager that is able to open and extract from the game's .pak files, then get WinRAR or 7-Zip, or look online for an alternative that'll work for you. I'd recommend either WinRAR or 7-Zip personally.

You can get WinRAR here: https://www.win-rar.com/download.html?&L=0
You can grab 7-Zip from here: https://www.7-zip.org

Next you'll want to go to your game's installation folder, the quickest way of doing this is to right-click the game in your steam's game list, then go to 'Manage' then click 'Browse Local Files', this'll bring up your game's installation folder.


Then you'll want to open up the 'DI' folder, which will display the following:


As you can see there's multiple Data*.pak files but the only one we want is Data0.pak, as inside this .pak file we'll need the file named 'default_levels.xml' in order to modify both the field of view value, as well as recoil and accuracy values for firearms.

Luckily, it's easy to find and extract:


Open Data0.pak using your preferred archive manager, e.g. WinRAR or 7-Zip, then go to the 'skills' folder inside the 'data' folder, then you'll want to extract 'default_levels.xml'. It doesn't matter where you extract it, you can put it on your desktop or in the same folder as the .pak file.

To edit the field of view, all you need to do is open up 'default_levels.xml' using Notepad, however I'd recommend using Notepad++ as it comes with better formatting than Windows Notepad.

Notepad++: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/

Regardless of the tool used, when you first open up the .xml file you're going to see a lot of values, you can ignore most of these.


The value you wish to edit will be '<prop n="CameraDefaultFOV" v="X"/>', you can Ctrl+F to search for it, such as 'FOV' or 'Camera' for a partial-match search and it should be the first thing to pop up.

X is where you'll slide in your own field of view value to replace the default value of 62.5.
So for example I've set mine to: <prop n="CameraDefaultFOV" v="90"/>

However, another thing to note is that the game uses vertical field of view, so use this tool here: https://themetalmuncher.github.io/fov-calc/
To figure out the exact field of view value you want. The default field of view of 62.5° translates to 93° horizontally. Whereas my value of 90° vertical translates to 121° horizontally.

When you've finished editing the field of view value in the .xml file, you can save the file and then add it back to the data0.pak archive to it's original location if you wish, however doing so will make guns pretty much useless as shown in the video below.

Not only will you suffer insane recoil, but hipfire accuracy is nonexistent, which also affects aimed accuracy, as the spread will be much greater than usual and inconsistent!

However this bug related to modified FoV values can be fixed!

In order to fix recoil as well as accuracy to make guns usable in your play-through if you have modified the FoV past it's default value, you'll need to edit additional values that are present within 'default_levels.xml'.

Starting with '<prop n="FirearmsPistolAccuracyFactor" v="1"/>', you won't need to scroll down far below in order to find all the values related to each gun category in Dead Island, as they're all right next to eachother.


You'll want to edit these accordingly, I've set the AccuracyFactor value to 0 on all firearm types, this solves the issue of both the crosshair vanishing and tripping out with modified FoV, as well as accuracy being nonexistent otherwise without this edit.

Then next, I've set the RecoilFactor value to 0.1 and from my testing this allows recoil to be present with a bit of kick, it's serviceable in comparison for both recoil and accuracy, as they are not as nearly as bad when they're set to these values instead of their defaults when your field of view is modified.

Below is a video showcasing the altered accuracy and recoil values with a vertical field of view of 90°.

After you've made these additional edits, save the .xml file and add it back to the data0.pak archive and launch the game.

If it's working then guns should have a persistent and tight crosshair and your recoil shouldn't be rocking your camera up and down.

Thanks to Len for writing the guide to edit FoV for DIDE which you can find here: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=694655661

And First &Forgiven's comment on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfQleXLATtg

If there's any problems drop a comment.

Disclaimer: I've not tried/tested this for Riptide or the original versions of this game, but I imagine you can perform similar if not the same edits if those games are packed in the same manner with the same files present for modification.

I've also not tested Purna out with these changes yet either or looked into if she ends up modifying accuracy or recoil values past their default values changed or otherwise, I'll update the guide when I do if she has any bugs that crop up with the modified default_levels values. I'd imagine she should be fine.