HorizonHorizon › Mods
Mods exist. Java JARs do not run.
Horizon does not load Mixins and does not pretend to be NeoForge. Two mod kinds of its own, plus an honest carry-over of other people's data.
Two formats
- Content mods (
.hmod): blocks and items from data and assets, no code. They run in singleplayer. This is also how the launcher carries over parts of Java mods. - Native mods (
.hnmod): Rust, built into a separate instance. Zoom, minimap, FPS overlay and keystrokes ship this way. The first build downloads the toolchain and takes 20 to 30 minutes.
A native mod is unsandboxed code. Install only what you trust.
Why Fabric does not load
A JAR patches Java Edition classes. Horizon has none of those classes. Performance cores such as Sodium do not apply: the renderer is already native. Data still matters: new blocks, loot, worldgen. The launcher can read a JAR without running it and say Works, Partly or Doesn't run.
Resource packs and modpacks
Java 26.3 resource packs install as in vanilla. Modrinth and CurseForge packs import; Horizon plays the mods it can carry, today mostly data and assets, not Java logic. Shader packs: Horizon .hshader files and Iris/OptiFine packs from the shaderpacks folder.