mod.io Newsletter: Cloud Cooking
The latest tech from our Game Services team, with Cloud Cooking for Unreal Engine, and our Unity Plugin latest version now available!
Adam Scoble, Head of Game Services - It’s my privilege to steal the mic usually held by Scott for a newsletter focused on the latest deliveries from the mod.io Game Services team. Simplifying in-game integration for our partners is a constant focus for all the work we do, and today’s updates are no different.
We recently simplified building custom in-game UGC interfaces, with our Component UI solutions integrated in the Unreal and Unity plugins. Today, we’ll talk about our new Cloud Cooking service for cross-platform games using Unreal Engine, an elegant and pain-free solution for shipping optimized UGC files across platforms. And on the Unity front, we’re proud to release mod.io Unity V3, a new improved version of our plugin packed with improvements.
New service: Cloud Cooking
For those unfamiliar with Unreal Engine pipelines, cooking is the process through which UE prepares content in order to deliver optimized files for each platform a game is available on (PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, you name it). The cooking process for specific platforms requires appropriate access to their confidential SDKs, so it can’t be run locally by a modder or content creator. This makes it necessary for the game developer to setup some kind of remote cooking process in order for the creators to be able to create content compatible and optimized for consoles.
Simply put, the mod.io Cloud Cooking service solves this for you. Compatible with every version of Unreal Engine, you set up the connection between your UGC tools and our servers. Then, when a creator sends a file for cooking via your editor, the process runs on our cloud infrastructure, and the optimized platform files are delivered directly to mod.io, ready to be approved for release. During the file processing both the end user and studio can follow-up with the status live on their mod.io interface.
Cloud Cooking is a premium service, it’s now available and compatible with all versions of Unreal engine, whether your integration uses our recommended suite of plugins or not. Integration with Unity or custom engines can be discussed upon request. Cloud Cooking is in private preview with selected partners, to learn more about the functionality, pricing and how to integrate our Cloud Cooking solution for your game, reach out to our team.
Unity Plugin: V3 Release
We released a major update of our Unity plugin last month, with a series of new improvements. You can get all the details of what the Unity plugin does in our updated documentation, or directly into our GitHub repository. It includes solutions to connect your game to mod.io, automate the downloading and installation of mods, easily build a custom UGC browsing interface using our Template UI, and even enable our marketplace functionalities for UGC monetization.
This new version includes an optimized mod installing process which greatly reduces download and install times, simplified and more intuitive interfaces, improved modularity and settings, and a new debugging mode. The plugin was rewritten from the ground up to better align with Unity’s philosophies, and makes the integration of mod.io in your project a smooth and pleasant experience. You can get all the details in our dedicated blog article.
Latest Releases
We’re delighted to see more titles starting to use mod.io services! Some notable additions in the past few months with Soulstone Survivors, bringing custom skins to the game using mod.io; Speedway Challenges 2025 support UGC on PC & mobile; and Mix Universe with a highly customized in-game integration using our Component UI solution, showing just how flexible it is.
