Kill la Kill - IF (Steam Deck Fix)

Kill la Kill - IF will not properly launch on the steam deck in game mode because of the launch menu stylization.

Bash script patcher

• Download https://gist.github.com/bkacjios/f4231f5c2b44976597b030887332c73a as a sh file and place it in the same directory as the KILLlaKILL_IF.exe file.
• Make sure to mark it as executable by right click->properties and going to the permissions tab.
• Right click and run the script with Konsole.
• If the exe is unpatched, it will ask if you would like to patch it. Type y to confirm.
• You can then close the konsole window.
• If you would like to revert for any reason, run the script again.

Manual patch

• Go to https://hexed.it/ and load up KILLlaKILL_IF.exe from the game directory.
• Search for hexidecimal value cc08c89088010000

• Replace cc08c89088010000 with cc08c89000000000 (Specifically zeroing out the 8801 part as highlight in the image above)
• Export the exe and replace it in the game directory.

Technical details

cc08c890 are the main stylization flags of the launch window. 88010000 are the extended stylization flags of the launch window.

I found this in Ghidra by searching the title in the strings of the exe.

The extended window value is WS_EX_TOPMOST (0x00000008L) + WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW (0x00000080L) or 88010000 in little endian hex. This means the window will act as a tool window and always be ontop of all other applications. I believe the tool window is the main culpret here. To fix it, I just disabled both of these flags by replacing 88010000 with all zeroes 00000000 This makes the launcher look like a proper window, disables the always on top functionality, and allows game mode to properly detect it.