Surviving the Aftermath: How to Bypass the Paradox Launcher 2021

This is a quick guide on how to bypass the Paradox Launcher. Tested on Windows 10, but it will probably also work on Windows 8 and 7. Removing the launcher can make the game start up faster, and prevent your personal data being send to Paradox.

Go to Control Panel and uninstall Paradox Launcher, if it is not there, you can skip this step.

Go to the directory where Surviving the Aftermath is installed, you can find this by going to steam, click with the right mouse button on Surviving the Aftermath, click on “Manage“, and click on “Browse Local Files“.

Turn on File Extensions, this is in the View tab on Windows 10 and on the Tools tab on Windows 7.

Create a text file, and rename it to “Aftermath64.bat“, make sure it ends with “.bat” and not with “.txt”

Right click on “Aftermath64.bat” and click on “Edit“. Then paste the following text:

And save the file.

Note: launch options (example -noWorkshop) need to be placed between “start “” “Aftermath64.exe” and “%command%” in the Aftermath64.bat file and not in the launch options in Steam.

You should now be able to start Surviving the Aftermath by double clicking on “Aftermath64.bat” and start without the Paradox Launcher. If the Paradox Launcher tries to install itself, just uninstall it again and continue with this step.

Right click on Surviving the Aftermath in Steam, and click on Properties, and type this into your launch options:

You should now be able to launch Surviving the Aftermath through Steam without the Paradox Launcher.

Note: If you see a command prompt windows open while the game starts, this is normal. This is the batch file.

Note: The Steam Overlay does not work.

Note: Only do this after you have succesfully launcher Surviving the Aftermath through Steam without the Paradox Launcher.

Go back to the Surviving the Aftermath directory and go to a folder called “Launcher“.
Delete “Paradox Launcher.exe“. Create a text file called “Paradox Launcher.exe“, make sure it ends with” .exe” and not “.txt”.
After that, right click on “Paradox Launcher.exe” and enable “Read-Only“.

This will make sure the launcher can’t reinstall itself or redownload itself during an update.

This is based on a guide on how to remove the Paradox Launcher from Cities:Skylines by Cel, you can find the guide here.

There are other methods there for Cities:Skylines witch you can also try out on Surviving the Aftermath.