L4D - How to install .vpk mods in Left 4 Dead without Steam

Written by Frans Hoorn | 19 August 2009

-!Click here for the video version of this tutorial!-

Welcome to our first FUN-DNA tutorial: How to install .vpk mods in Left 4 Dead without Steam.

I assume that you already downloaded a .vpk mod, but if you haven’t you can download them here:

http://www.l4dmaps.com/

http://www.l4dmods.com/

As soon as you’ve got a .vpk file and you want to install it, it will give you an error like this:

I tried to install the campaign “Heaven Can Wait”, but if you install another campaign/mod the first part of the error message differs.

To install the mod, without using steam, you have to follow this steps:

1. 1. First download and install GCFScape here: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=26. If you don’t have Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1, you can also download them there.

2. When you’ve installed GCFScape, just start it and press open:

3. Open the .vpk file, and you’ll get something like this:

This can also differ but that depends on the mod, just make sure you have a root folder.

4. Right-click on root and click Extract.

5. Extract the root folder to a location you can remember easily.

6. Now open the root folder (the folder you just extracted) and you will see something like this:

There could be more/less folders and files but that depends on the mod.

7. Copy the folders and files (sometimes there are also files that are not in a folder) and paste them in C:\Program Files\Left4Dead\left4dead\ (the location can differ on you pc, but this is the default location).

(!) In some older versions of windows, folders aren't merged automatically. There you have to open root\maps\, copy all the files there, and paste them in C:\Program Files\Left4Dead\left4dead\maps\ and than do that for every folder. Normally this is NOT required and windows merges the folders automatically (!)

8. If it's just a mod, you're finished and you can start playing with the mod that's enabled automatically, if it's a campaign/map you have to follow step 9.

9. Start Left 4 Dead, and go to the console. Just act like you are hosting a normal game, but when you enter the name of the map, you first type "maps *" than you see the list of maps and you can see the name of your new map(s), than copy the name of the map you want to play, type "map [paste here the name of the map]" without the [], press enter and you can start playing your new installed .vpk campaign/map.

10. That's it, see how easy it is? If you have questions, just leave a comment here and I'll answer them!

Franz24