RimWorld dev mode is the game’s built-in cheat and testing menu. To turn it on, open Options (Esc in a colony, or from the main menu), stay on the General tab and tick Development mode. A row of dev buttons then appears at the top of the screen. There’s no typed console: you click actions such as Spawn thing or Resurrect, then a pawn or tile. Below: every useful tool by task, plus fixes for when dev mode won’t open. Checked November 2, 2026 UTC against RimWorld 1.6.4850, the current main-branch version on Steam.
Table of Contents
Quick answer
- Enable: Options > General > Development mode.
- Spawn items: open the Debug actions menu, type “spawn” in the search box, pick Spawn thing (or Spawn full thing stack), choose the item, click a tile.
- Heal a pawn: Heal random injury (10), Restore Body Part or Resurrect, or turn on God mode and clear conditions in the Health tab.
- Remove a hediff: there’s no “Remove hediff” action any more. Turn on God mode, open the pawn’s Health tab and click the small red cross next to the condition.
- Change ideology: with dev mode on, the Ideoligion tab gets an edit button in its top-right corner. To move one pawn to another ideoligion, use the Set ideo action.
- Change age: Make +1 year older, Force Birthday, Progress life stage or Grow Pawn to Maturity. There’s no “make younger” action.
- Not working: delete the
DevModeDisabledfile in your Config folder, or disable mods until the menus open again. - Achievements: RimWorld’s Steam page lists no Steam achievements, so dev mode has none to block.
How to enable dev mode in RimWorld
- In a colony, press Esc and choose Options (on the main menu, just click Options).
- On the General tab, tick Development mode. TheGamer’s 1.6-era guide notes that it’s set to a cross by default.
- Close the menu. In a colony, a toolbar of dev icons now sits at the top middle of the screen.
Two more things change once it’s on. The main menu gets a Dev quicktest button, which (per the Steam guide linked below) starts the standard Crashlanded scenario on a random tile for quick testing. Options also gains a Dev tab, which TheGamer says holds error-logging settings and the switch to disable the mode entirely. Ludeon’s option labels there include “Start game with dev palette on” and “Permanently disable development mode” (from Ludeon’s official translation files on GitHub, which keep the English text: Menu_Options.xml).
Save before you experiment, as TheGamer recommends: raids, explosions and map tools can’t be undone.
What each dev toolbar button does
Names from Ludeon’s key-binding list, “Active in development mode only” (KeyBindings.xml). Each can get a key under Options > Controls:
| Control (Ludeon’s name) | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| Toggle debug actions menu | The “cheats” menu: spawning, pawn edits, incidents, map tools. |
| Toggle debug settings menu | On/off switches such as damage, storyteller, diseases, fast research and unlimited power. |
| Toggle god mode | Instant, free building, plus the extra buttons in the Health tab. |
| Toggle dev palette | A small window that holds the actions you pin. |
| Toggle debug log | The error log, first stop when a mod breaks something. |
| Toggle debug inspector | A panel of technical readouts, mostly for modders. |
| Game speed: Ultra fast (debug) | A fourth game speed above the normal three. |
Inside the Debug actions menu, actions that start with T: are targeted: click one, then click the pawn, item or tile it should affect. Right-click cancels it, as TheGamer explains. Use the search box (“heal”, “spawn”, “raid”) instead of scrolling: menus have been rearranged over the years, and search finds actions wherever they sit.
Dev palette: click the pin icon next to any action to add it to the palette window. Right-click the window to move it (Steam guide by The Mediumest Viking).
Every line in this Health tab is a hediff. With God mode on, each one gets a red cross so you can remove it. Image: Ludeon Studios
RimWorld dev mode: spawn items, pawns and animals
All spawning lives in the Debug actions menu. The action names below come from the full menu list in HolyHosting’s dev mode reference (updated May 2026)
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Spawn thing | Any item or building (vanilla, DLC or mod), then click a tile. |
| Spawn full thing stack | The same, as a full stack (steel, silver…). |
| Try spawn stack of market value | Spawns a stack worth a value you choose. |
| Spawn Weapon / Spawn apparel | Lists of only weapons or only clothing and armor. |
| Spawn meal with specifics | A meal made from chosen ingredients. Ludeon added it in update 1.3.3287. |
| Spawn Pawn / Spawn Pawn With Lifestage | Any pawn kind: colonist, raider, animal, mechanoid. The second picks baby, child or adult. |
| Add Prisoner / Add Guest | Spawns a new prisoner or guest. |
| T: Recruit / T: Tame Animal | Instantly recruits a prisoner or tames a wild animal you click. |
Removing items: use T: Destroy (deletes the thing) or T: Kill. Clear area (rect) clears a rectangle you drag, so use it carefully.
How to heal a pawn with dev mode
| Goal | Tool |
|---|---|
| Heal wounds a bit at a time | T: Heal random injury (10). Click the pawn repeatedly. |
| Stop bleeding now | T: Tend Bleeding Hediffs |
| Regrow a lost arm, leg or eye | T: Restore Body Part |
| Instant immunity to a disease | T: Grant Immunities / T: Toggle immunity |
| Bring a dead pawn back | T: Resurrect (click the corpse) |
| End a mental break | T: Stop mental state |
| Clear everything at once | God mode + the Health tab (next section) |
When a player in a 2022 Steam thread found Heal random injury not working, the accepted answer was God mode plus the Health tab (next section).
RimWorld dev mode: remove a hediff (disease, addiction, implant)
“Hediff” (short for health difference) is RimWorld’s term for anything in the Health tab: wounds, diseases, addictions, scars, implants, even the joywire. Older guides tell you to use a “T: Remove Hediff” action. That action is gone. Since update 1.4 (October 2022) removal sits in the Health tab itself. Steam threads from November 2022 to November 2024 confirm it:
- Turn on God mode from the dev toolbar.
- Select the pawn and open the Health tab.
- Click the small red cross next to the condition you want gone.
The button is hidden while God mode is off, which is why people think removal was deleted. To add one, use Add Hediff in the Debug actions menu.
Age, traits, skills and backstory are set here at the start. Mid-game, dev mode's Give Trait, Set Skill and age tools change them. Image: Ludeon Studios
How to change a pawn’s age in dev mode
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| T: Make +1 year older | Ages the pawn by one year per click. |
| T: Make +1 day older | Adds one day. |
| T: Force Birthday | Triggers a birthday now. |
| T: Progress life stage | Moves a baby or child to the next life stage (Biotech). |
| T: Grow Pawn to Maturity | Skips a child straight to adulthood. |
No vanilla action makes a pawn younger in the menu lists we checked. In a 2022 Steam thread players pointed to aging up “via birthday” in dev mode, or to the Character Editor mod for full age editing. A September 2024 report describes age edits on one timber wolf changing a whole wolf family at once.
How to change ideology with dev mode
This needs the Ideology DLC.
- Edit your ideoligion: with dev mode on, open the Ideoligion tab and use the edit button in its top-right corner. Steam players (2021 thread) say you can then change memes, rituals, roles, clothing and the name without trouble; removing altars after building a temple is the edit they weren’t sure about.
- Move a pawn to another ideoligion: use the Set ideo action on the pawn. A 2024 thread suggests restoring your original ideoligion by editing it, then setting new pawns to it.
- Fluid ideoligion points: Ludeon’s 1.4 notes added a “dev tool to add ideology development points”, so you can reform a fluid ideoligion without waiting for rituals.
- Test roles and rituals: the Debug settings menu has Activate All Ideo Roles.
Traits, skills and passions
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Give Trait | Pick a trait, then click the pawn. |
| T: Remove All Traits | Clears every trait. |
| Set Skill / Max Skill / T: Max All Skills | Sets one skill or maxes them all. |
| Set Passion / Max Passion / T: Max All Passions | Changes the flame icons. |
| Set Backstory | Swaps childhood or adulthood backstory. |
| Give Ability | Adds an ability to a pawn. |
Removing a single trait: the menu lists only Remove All Traits. The workaround is to remove all of them, then use Give Trait to add back the ones you want to keep.
Raids, events, weather and the map
| Action | Use it to |
|---|---|
| Do incident (Map) | Fire any event: trader, wanderer joins, eclipse, infestation and so on. |
| Execute raid with points / with faction / with specifics | Test your defenses with a raid you choose. |
| Do trade caravan arrival | Call a trader now. |
| Remove Game Condition | End a solar flare, toxic fallout, cold snap or heat wave early. |
| Change weather | Set the weather. |
| Force Enemy Flee | Make attackers retreat. |
| Finish All Research | Completes the whole tech tree. |
| Clear All Fog / Unfog (rect) | Reveals the map or part of it. |
Ludeon’s patch notes added more fixes like these, such as a “debug tool to stop timed raids once started” (1.3.3069) and one “to force end revenant hypnosis” (1.5, Anomaly).
Execute raid with points lets you test a defense like this one before a real raid arrives. Image: Ludeon Studios
God mode and the Debug settings menu
God mode in RimWorld is not invincibility. TheGamer describes it as letting you build instantly for free and sell things that aren’t yours, while your pawns can still get hurt. To actually protect your colonists, switch off Enable Player Damage in the Debug settings menu.
Other Debug settings switches (HolyHosting’s list): Enable Damage, Enable Storyteller, Enable Random Diseases and Enable Random Mental States (untick to pause each), plus Unlimited Power, Instant Recruit, Fast Research, Fast Learning, Fast Crafting and Fast Caravans.
Fix a broken quest with dev mode (Ludeon’s own method)
In the 1.1.2560 hotfix notes, Ludeon used dev mode to end a mechanoid cluster quest that never finished:
- Turn on development mode in the options menu.
- Open the stuck quest, tick “Dev: Debug” under its description and scroll down.
- Click the “…” button next to the “send signal” box and pick the signal that completes the step (in that case one similar to
Quest0.cluster.AllEnemiesDefeated).
That bug is long fixed, but the same panel works on any stuck quest.
RimWorld dev mode not working: fixes
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| The Development mode checkbox is missing | Someone used “Permanently disable development mode”. Close the game and delete the empty file DevModeDisabled from the Config folder: %USERPROFILE%AppDataLocalLowLudeon StudiosRimWorld by Ludeon StudiosConfig on Windows, or ~/.config/unity3d/Ludeon Studios/RimWorld by Ludeon Studios/Config on Linux (paths from TheGamer). Delete only that file (SM Gamer: the whole folder holds your settings and mod list). |
| Toolbar shows, but buttons open nothing | Usually a mod conflict (the consensus in Steam threads from 2020 to 2025). Check the debug log for red errors, update mods, and disable them half at a time until the menus open. |
| Broke after a big update | After 1.5 launched, one player fixed it by forcing all mods to update. |
| One button does nothing | Try its keybind from Options > Controls (a 2025 reply in that thread). |
| No Remove hediff action | It moved: God mode + Health tab (see above). |
| No toolbar on the main menu | The toolbar only appears inside a colony. The main menu shows Dev quicktest instead. |
About that “permanently disable” option: Ludeon’s confirmation text says it’s “for people who want a pure play experience without the temptation to use development tools”, and that re-enabling “requires manually editing configuration files. You’ll need to search the Internet to find out how.” (Dialogs_Various.xml).
Does dev mode affect achievements or saves?
Achievements: RimWorld’s Steam store page lists no Steam achievements among its features (checked November 2, 2026), so there’s nothing for dev mode to disable.
Saves: we found nothing in Ludeon’s patch notes about dev mode marking or locking a save. The risk is the actions themselves, so keep a backup save.
Update 1.7: Ludeon announced update 1.7 on October 12, 2026. It moves RimWorld to Ludeon’s own Waylith engine, is on the “unstable” beta branch for now, and Ludeon says the game “looks and plays exactly the same”. The main branch is still 1.6 (latest patch 1.6.4850, June 8, 2026), which is what this guide reflects.
More PC cheat guides: Cyberpunk 2077 console commands, Skyrim console commands and item IDs, 7 Days to Die console commands and Valheim dev commands. For another colony survival game, see our Frostpunk 2 factions tier list.
FAQ
Does RimWorld have console commands?
Not typed ones. Dev mode replaces a console with clickable actions in the Debug actions menu.
How do I re-enable dev mode after permanently disabling it?
Close the game and delete the DevModeDisabled file from RimWorld’s Config folder (paths in the table above), then relaunch.
Can I change a pawn’s age in RimWorld without mods?
Only upward: Make +1 year older, Force Birthday or the life-stage tools. Making a pawn younger needs a mod such as Character Editor.
Sources: Ludeon Studios’ official translation files on GitHub (English UI text), RimWorld Steam news (1.1.2560, 1.3.3069, 1.3.3287, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6.4850, 1.7 announcement), the Steam store page, TheGamer, SM Gamer, HolyHosting, a Steam guide by The Mediumest Viking and RimWorld Steam discussions (2020-2025). The RimWorld Wiki blocked our automated check, so it isn’t cited. Checked November 2, 2026 UTC.
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