PARANOIA - Below the Shadows

PARANOIA: Below the Shadows

v2.0b1

Brief Summary

PARANOIA: Below the Shadows, once known as PARANOID: Beyond Sanity, is a repurposed horror modpack to be more focused on optimization, atmosphere, and gameplay.
What I hope to accomplish is to give people the experience of walking through the corrupt world of mystery and the unknown, while providing optimal performance and experience for a large modpack.
PLEASE do keep in mind that this is an early beta build, things are subject to change and bugs are very likely. This beta phase is expected to last for several months. I anticipate the release version to be ready by mid-January 2027. If you have issues with the gameplay and have bugs to report, an idea or two to suggest, or have questions, I encourage you to join my Discord server.

See below for people who fear spiders:

Intro

The world was peaceful. People built villages, structures, homes, and cities. The wildlife was great, featuring beautiful animals and an amazing sunset that glowed on the horizon, illuminating the beauty of the Earth.

That didn't last for so long, and it changed when the corruption emerged. People became possessed, corrupted, and strange... They weren't ordinary people anymore, they became the icon of true horror. And then, rituals were done, and more corrupted and distorted entities emerged that haunt, hunt, and ruin what was once a peaceful planet. There is no peace anymore.

You're now one of the few people remaining on Earth who is not cursed. The only issue is that you're paranoid due to the uneasy presence that now covers this planet. You have to watch your sanity. You have to watch your temperature. Are you seeing things? Are you overthinking? Are you paranoid? Are you okay?

Enter with caution. Respect the nature that still remains.

Disclaimers and Notes

This is an early beta.

As mentioned, this is a beta build, and is expected to last for some months before my anticipated release date, January 19th, 2027. Many things are subject to change. Mods may be replaced or removed, which can sometimes result in your world being unplayable or corrupt. Always back up your world before updating.
Side note: If you are coming from legacy versions of PARANOID v1.x.x and want to test this redesigned modpack, you can create a separate instance on the CurseForge app.
You can send feedback via my Discord server.

Mods can be turned off.

Mods can be turned off to your own preference. If you find a mod or two causing your experience to be in the way or is bothersome, you can turn them off by heading to Profile Options and then toggling "Allow content management for this modpack". This allows you to enable or disable mods.
Experience can differ with everyone else.
And yes, you can configure the mods yourself if you know how to.

This is hardcore.

You may spawn in a difficult terrain and/or entities already attacking you. I do plan on working around/fixing such scenarios; likelihood isn't 100% guaranteed.

All mods in this modpack are credited to the original authors.

Every mod in this modpack (and my other modpacks) is not mine, nor do I claim to have developed the mods. The term modpack is just a pack of mods that is available and is often allowed for people to include in their modpacks. This modpack was created using existing mods developed by their original authors. I don't create or modify the mods themselves; I develop the modpack experience by combining and configuring them to create an experience.

Known Issues/Notes

• Sheep's texture is not being rendered properly due to Fresh Animation trying to add texture features that is not supported with the default model.
• FPS drops when in certain biomes or in villages. This is normal since there is a lot of entities' pathfinding and ticking, as well as particles. Just something to know if you're wondering "Why is my PC lagging?!"
• Some mods don't behave as they should. Sometimes they'll spawn rarely or too often, sometimes they'll overlap with another. This is because this is a large modpack, and certain mods probably would interfere with each other. It's all up to the developer for them to make patches or direct changes. I can only do so much.
• Some music/sounds are very loud. Can be altered in settings/configs.
• The game can still sometimes crash without a crash report. Just know what you're doing.
• The title screen can be a bit finicky. Depending on your resolution and scaling, elements can look out of place or just wrong altogether.

(Updated 10/23/26)

PC Hardware Specs

Just have a system that can even run Minecraft. I don't need to list out all the technical recommended specs.
Though I do recommend you ensure Minecraft has an allocated memory of at least 9GB, which should do that for you by default.
Though I do recommend a CPU newer/better than i7 9000 series or Ryzen 7 2000 series, since this is a single-threaded game.
Then a GPU of at least RTX 2070 or better, and Radeon 5000 series or better, to handle most of my tuned shaders. (Also subject for changes.)
You can expect around 70 to 115FPS or more, depending your hardware. (With Hysteria shaderpack)
Tested on Intel i5 13600KF, RTX 4060 Ti, 32GB DDR4 RAM

For Mac users, this modpack isnt properly optimized yet, though there'll be a dedicated modpack file for Apple Silicon users (ARM). PCs running Windows with x86 CPUs get the updates first, then Mac follows shortly, typically within 2 to 6+ days after an update is released.
An M1 chip should be able to run the modpack, but you'll need at least 16GB RAM to handle this modpack as it allociates 9GB for Minecraft itself, and the base M1 MacBook Air/Mac Mini/iMac with 8GB RAM will not run properly, and likely crash.
M1 Pro with 16GB RAM and newer is preferred.

For Mac users with legacy Intel processors, you could expect a dedicated file around late December to release date. While performance will not likely be great anyways, I do recommend a 2017 iMac/iMac Pro/MacBook Pro with i7 processor or better.
More onto that in the future.

Thanks for reading! If you have ideas or encounter issues, or want to share feedback on how your experience is going, join my Discord server! Troll or inflamed comments will not be tolerable.
The world may be insane, but you're not.

Also check out...

Forsaken Wilds (Legacy)