This is a guide made by an idiot (me) who searched for why his Steam Deck wasn't showing certain Divinity Original Sin 2 Definite Edition mods that he downloaded on Steam's Workshop. Since there was no one with an actual answer as best as I can tell, as every guide I searched with 'Steam Deck' was about Norbyte, so I'm the idiot who will try to tell you how to do so.

This will also technically tell you how to install Norbyte's onto Steam Deck I guess, as most of the good mods needs it, but that's not the main point of this guide.

Just to point out, Mod Organizer 2 does not have support for this game yet, Vortex on Nexusmods is trying to have Linux support on it, but not yet as far as I can tell and Laughing Leaders own mod organizer needs Windows to run...which the Steam Deck might be able to use if you install it with emulation or something, but that's a whole different thing. Steam Deck didn't have a path for its mods in its document area and creating it didn't do anything. This guide is how to do this MANUALLY without too many things to install if possible.

Sorry, but I got no images to help cause...too many stupid reasons. This is a text based guide only.

Right, you may have messed around and found certain things, I'll still probably say them just in case.

First off, your Steam Deck has a 'Desktop Mode'. What that is, is of course the option to use your Steam Deck like a Linux based Laptop Computer. This option is where we get into the meat and bones of this guide.

There are two ways to get to Desktop mode. One option is to press and hold the power button and it'll show the option 'Switch to Desktop' to enter Desktop Mode. The other option is to click on the Steam button and press the Power option for the same thing.

Now, before anything, If you don't have some kind of dock to use a keyboard and mouse, note that pressing the Steam button and X at the same time will display the virtual keyboard.

You can use the screen as a touchpad, but if you are like me, a klutz, then the right Haptic can be used like a mouse as the somewhat better option.

A slight detour, but you won't have a Web Browser installed, but you can install what apparently they recommend is Firefox. If you're not into that, then click on that shopping bag at the bottom and then search for Google Chrome. Why you need a web Browser? To Download Norbyte's Script Extender without needing a flash drive to transfer files around basically.

Now, I don't know if there's any other file browser, but the default one is called Dolphin. It's the obvious folder looking icon at the bottom of the screen likely next the the shopping bag icon. As I used that do figure things out, this guide will be based on that.

Now, if you didn't change anything around yet, then the things you'll see will be the bare bones that displays things like Documents, Desktop, Downloads, etc. At least it should if the display at the top of the program says 'Home - Dolphin' and below that should be just 'Home'.

Just humor me and read my guide first on how I first found how to find the file path before you do anything else.

Click on the the area that just displays 'Home'. It should then allow a path called /home/deck/. Don't delete anything, just type in .steam/ after it, so it should be /home/deck/.steam/ and then press enter. You've now entered the right area to begin modding!

Now, the easy way: There's a menu button on Dolphin and it has the option to show hidden files. Click on that to see the .steam folder.

If you hear the sound of a forehead hitting a desk repeatedly, then that's me for being a moron and taking the long path every time.

Moving on, enter the steam folder. Enter the steamapps folder. Now this is where you'll need a new window, which should both show the same area ATM. We'll simply seperate them as 'Window 1' and 'Window 2' for now.

Ignore the sounds of my head hitting the desk again because I used the option called split to move the files around before this.

With Window 2, enter workshop, then content. If you have more than one folder in content, then the one you're looking for SHOULD be 435150. There should be more folders and inside those folders are the pak files...as in the files of the DO2 DefEd mods that you downloaded on the Steam Workshop.

For the long route, the path should be:

/home/.steam/steam/steamapps/workshop/content/435150/

Go to Window 1, enter common, then Divinity Original Sin 2, then DefEd, then finally Data. The path should be:

'/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Divinity Original Sin 2/DefEd/Data/

Congratulations! You should be in the right area. DO NOT go into the Mods folder (for now) Just stay on Data for Window 1 for now. Go back to Window 2.

Now, for the purposes of how I did it, I'll use Odinblades 'Odin Core Mod Services' as that's a workshop mod that never appeared on MY in game mod loader. Since all the folders are just lines of numbers, the best way is to download said file last and change the view to see what file was last added in and enter that folder. You can re-download by pressing 'Return to Gaming mode' icon on the desktop or the Steam icon that may be right next to it and going into the games workshop that way. Either is fine.

By the way, if you're just going to guess by looking at all the folders, don't worry as most of the pak files have actual understandable names at the start of its file so you can find the file eventually. Note: MOST, hence why you should re-download your missing mod last.

Anyways, the file in the folder should have (as per the example) OdinCore_random bunch of numbers and letters and ending with .pak, which should be the only file in there. Just drag the .pak from Window 2 to Window 1's area and you should get the option to copy the file over in Data. Do so.

And you should be done! Enter the game and you should see the mod showing up in the in game mod manager and actually usable. One thing to note though, once you do it manually, you're going to have to keep on doing it once in a while for the updates to take effect, maybe re-subscribing to ensure that you really gotten the update and moving it all over again.

Now, I suppose you could put the .pak file into the 'Mods' Folder in Data, as I never checked if it does work there instead, which was why I said the 'for now' part previously. If it does, then tell me so I can change my stupid guide a bit.

Buy the way, the place to install Norbyte's Script extender would be '/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Divinity Original Sin 2/DefEd/bin/ so that's just a click or two away. Since the file is a zip, there's no problems for the steam deck to use your newly installed web browser to download, extract the file and move it there properly.

This might not be the best (or polite) way in detail of how to get your mods to work for your Steam Deck and I am sorry for that, but I'm certain it's the first attempt for such a device, which needs this the most ever since Divinity Original Sin 2 Definite Edition got the green light for compatibility for it. Hopefully there will be someone who will look at my crappy guide and say 'I can do better than you!' and do so, with pictures and maybe youtube video guides, much to the joy of all Steam Deck gamers out there.