Install BepInEx 5 (x64)

How BepInEx actually gets in#

Worth thirty seconds, because it explains every rule that follows.

Windows programs load system DLLs by name, and they look in their own folder before they look in the system folder. BepInEx exploits that: it ships a file called winhttp.dll which Ravenfield loads instead of the real one, because it is sitting right there next to the executable. That file is Unity Doorstop, and all it does is start up, forward every genuine winhttp call on to the real system library so nothing breaks, read doorstop_config.ini, and load whatever assembly that file points at.

[General]
enabled = true
target_assembly=BepInEx\core\BepInEx.Preloader.dll

So the chain is: game starts → loads winhttp.dll from its own folder → Doorstop reads the ini → Doorstop loads BepInEx’s preloader → the preloader scans BepInEx\plugins and loads every plugin it finds → the game continues normally.

What is in the pack#

The official BepInEx_win_x64_5.4.23.3.zip contains twenty-two files and exactly four things at the top level. Knowing this makes the next step unambiguous, because these four items are precisely what has to end up in your game folder:

The install#

1. Download the right pack

   Roughly 624 KB

   Open the BepInEx releases page, find the newest release whose version starts with 5.4, expand its Assets list and download:

   BepInEx_win_x64_5.4.23.3.zip

   The assets list is long and most of it is for other kinds of game. If the file name contains IL2CPP, x86, unix, linux, macos or 6.0.0-be, it is not the one — the full comparison table is here.

2. Unblock the zip before you extract it

   Skipping this causes a silent no-op install

   Right-click the downloaded file → Properties. If the General tab has a Security line at the bottom saying the file came from another computer, tick Unblock, then OK.

   Do this on the zip, before extracting. Once you extract a blocked archive, every file inside inherits the block and you have twenty-two of them to clear instead of one.

   If there is no Security line, your browser did not mark the file and there is nothing to do.

3. Extract it into the Ravenfield folder

   The step that goes wrong most often

   Open your game root — Steam → right-click Ravenfield → Manage → Browse local files — and extract the contents of the zip into it.

   The word doing the work there is into. You want the four top-level items from the archive sitting directly in the game folder, alongside ravenfield.exe. You do not want a folder called BepInEx_win_x64_5.4.23.3 in there.

   The reliable way with 7-Zip: open the zip, press Ctrl+A to select all four items, and drag them into the Explorer window showing your game folder. With WinRAR, Extract to and then set the destination path to the game folder by hand rather than accepting the suggested subfolder.

4. Launch Ravenfield once, then quit

   This is what generates the plugins and config folders

   Start the game normally from Steam. Wait for the main menu to finish loading — the loading screen alone is not far enough — then quit back to the desktop.

   During that launch, BepInEx created its remaining folders. Without this step there is nowhere to put a plugin, and creating plugins by hand hides the more useful information that BepInEx never ran at all.

5. Check that it worked

   Five folders and a log file

   Back in the game folder, you should now have a BepInEx folder containing cache, config, core, patchers and plugins, plus a LogOutput.log file.

   If LogOutput.log exists, BepInEx ran. That is the single best yes-or-no signal you have, and everything in the section below is about reading it.

What correct looks like#

After step three — extraction, before the first launch — your game root should look like this:

And this is a real install, photographed after the first launch. Click it to compare against your own folder at full size:

Full sizeExplorer

After the first launch#

The launch in step four fills out the rest of the structure. Four folders appear that were not in the zip:

Full sizeExplorer

Reading the log#

BepInEx\LogOutput.log is written fresh on every launch and it will tell you more in ten seconds than an hour of moving files around. Open it in Notepad. The first few lines should look like this:

[Message:   BepInEx] BepInEx 5.4.23.3 - ravenfield (…)
[Info   :   BepInEx] Running under Unity v2020.3.…
[Info   :   BepInEx] CLR runtime version: 4.0.30319.…
[Info   :   BepInEx] Supports SRE: True
[Info   :   BepInEx] System platform: Bits64, Windows
[Message:   BepInEx] Preloader started
[Info   :   BepInEx] 0 patcher plugins loaded
[Message:   BepInEx] Preloader finished
[Message:   BepInEx] Chainloader ready
[Message:   BepInEx] Chainloader started
[Info   :   BepInEx] 0 plugins to load

0 plugins to load is the correct and expected result at this point — you have not installed any yet. What matters is that the file exists and that the version and platform lines read 5.4.x and Bits64, Windows.

Optional: turn on the console#

BepInEx can open a second window alongside the game showing everything it and every plugin logs, live. It is not needed for normal play, but if you are ever diagnosing something it turns guesswork into reading.

1. Open BepInEx\config\BepInEx.cfg

   Any text editor. This file only exists after the first launch.

2. Find the [Logging.Console] section

   Change Enabled = false to Enabled = true, save, and start the game.

[Logging.Console]

## Enables showing a console for log output.
# Setting type: Boolean
# Default value: false
Enabled = true

When it does not work#

In rough order of how often each one is the answer.

There is no LogOutput.log and no new folders#

BepInEx never ran. Almost always the extraction went one level too deep — check for a folder named after the zip inside your game folder. Confirm that winhttp.dll and ravenfield.exe are visible in the same Explorer window at the same time. If they are not, that is the whole problem.

winhttp.dll is in the right place and still nothing happens#

Check the file size. The correct winhttp.dll from the x64 pack is 26 KB. If yours is a different size you have the x86 pack, and a 64-bit process will not load a 32-bit DLL — it fails silently and carries on. Re-download BepInEx_win_x64_5.4.23.3.zip.

Files disappear from the game folder on their own#

Antivirus. DLL injection looks like malware to a heuristic scanner because it is the same technique. Add your Ravenfield folder as an exclusion and extract again — the walkthrough is on the requirements page.

Doorstop is installed but disabled#

Open doorstop_config.ini and confirm enabled = true under [General]. Some mod managers and some game-specific repacks ship it set to false, or point target_assembly at a path that does not exist in Ravenfield. It should read exactly:

enabled = true
target_assembly=BepInEx\core\BepInEx.Preloader.dll

It works from the exe but not from Steam, or the other way round#

Both routes run the same executable from the same folder, so both should behave identically. If they do not, something is passing an argument that disables Doorstop — check Properties → Launch Options in Steam for a stray --doorstop-enabled false or a DOORSTOP_DISABLE environment variable left over from a previous mod setup.

It stopped working after a game update#

A Ravenfield update replaces files in the game folder but does not remove BepInEx. Occasionally Steam's file verification decides winhttp.dll does not belong and deletes it. Extract the pack again — your plugins and config folders are untouched, so nothing is lost and no settings are reset.

Loader installed#

• winhttp.dll is in the same folder as ravenfield.exe
• doorstop_config.ini is there too, with enabled = true
• I launched the game once and reached the main menu
• BepInEx\plugins and BepInEx\config now exist
• BepInEx\LogOutput.log exists and reports 5.4.x on Bits64

With those five true, the loader is done and you never have to think about it again. The mods themselves are three copy-and-paste operations.

Install the mods →