Have you ever wanted to play a game from your childhood, but the thought of staring at ancient graphics just turns you off the idea?
We’ve all been there, but luckily, if you’re a PC user, you have access to the modding community, and several of those modders feel just like you.
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Some of these mods completely redo the game’s graphics from the ground up, while others just update character models, or effects.
There are so many games that have gotten the graphics mod treatment, and here are ten old games that look amazing with graphics mods.
10Final Fantasy 7
No More Block Monsters
Final Fantasy 7
Final Fantasy 7is one of the best andmost important games of all time, but today, it shows its age quite a bit. Fortunately, the modders of the world have put in an enormous effort to make the game easy to play today.
There are countless graphics mods available, but the best one is theGaia VII Remaster. This amazing remaster changes the backgrounds, the character models, the enemy models, and the effects to effectively bringFinal Fantasy 7into something close to the modern age of gaming.
You could argue it loses some of the charm that made the original so endearing, but if you’re hopping into the game for the first time, having crisp visuals is the best way to do it.
The Revision We Needed
Deus Exis an incredible franchisewithsome great entries, but going back to the roots of the series is a tough task,considering the original was released in 2000.
It’s an ugly game these days, and there is no sugar-coating it. However, we have the fantasticDeus Ex: Revision, a community-made mod that updates the game considerably, from lighting to textures, and makes playing through the game today a far more pleasant experience.
It’s not just a graphics mod, but an entire overhaul of the game, which maintains the goal of the original while adding a ton of QOL features and map expansions.
8System Shock 2
The Space Makeover
System Shock 2
With the amazingSystem Shock Remakelast year, it’s worth taking a look at the superior andmost popular game in the series,System Shock 2.
This terrifying space adventure, released in 1999, needs a massive remaster, if not a full remake.
Instead of waiting for that to become a reality, you may try this fantastic graphics mod that makes this murky space horror a little easier on the eyes.
System Shock 2is all about the atmosphere, so the graphics being improved here, especially on the texture front, makes the game far more enjoyable to play these days, and it doesn’t alter anything model-wise, so the original’s integrity is maintained.
7Watch Dogs
The Graphics We Were Promised in the Trailer
Watch Dogs
Watch Dogswas supposed to be thenext big franchise in gaming. The E3 demo showed off incredibly realistic graphics, and the hype was at a fever pitch.
Unfortunately, the game’s actual graphics didn’t live up to that promise, and it suffered because of it.
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It’s a shame becauseWatch Dogsis the best game in the series for many reasons, and thankfully, there is anext-gen graphics overhaulthat makes those initial promises a reality.
This amazing mod makesWatch Dogslook as good as any open world in gaming today; from incredible lighting and textures to sharper overall visuals, the game itself looks much better thanWatch Dogs: Legion, which came out in 2020.
6Half Life: 2
A Much Better Looking Dystopia
Half-Life 2
Half Life: 2is among the industry’smost hallowed games. It marked a distinctive turn in first-person shooters and showed that it wasn’t just about violence and chaos but storytelling, atmosphere, and creative gameplay as well.
It’s an old game at this point, as in twenty years old, and with that comes some rough visuals compared to modern games.
The fans of the franchise, however, remain hard at work, and themodding community is incredible.
There are too many great ones to single out, but you can find gun texture replacements, lighting overhauls, 4k texture packs, and anything else you can think of.
The sum of all of this makes the game look incredible today, and will make playing this classic a bit more fun than it would be playing it in its vanilla state.
If you need an excuse to play one of the most important games ever made. Now you’ve got one.
5Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines
Vampire Resurrection
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlinesis quite possibly the only game of its kind.This massive vampire RPG is the only true vampire sim we’ve got to this day, and it’s praised for being not only the only game of its kind, but a damn good one at that.
As you can see by the release date, though, it shared the exact date with Half-Life: 2 and came directly afterHalo 2, leaving sales figures rather underwhelming.This is perhaps why we still await a direct sequel, which seems to be still penciled in for a 2025 release.
Playing it today, however, is an absolute treat, partly because of the amazing modding community. Whenequipped with a handful of Nexus’s mods,Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlinesat least manages to get itself into the PS3-early PS4 era, and the gameplay that accompanies those visuals still stands up as some of the most deep and intriguing RPG goodness we’ve got.
4Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
This is the Mod You’ve Been Looking For
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republicis possibly the best Star Wars game of all time. But despite its pedigree, it’s still a relic by all accounts.
The writing,storytelling, characters, and graphics make ithard to play these days, but with mods, you can dust off the cobwebs and make this intergalactic space opera shine again.
You can find tons of mods that improve the character models, effects, textures, and lightsaber overhauls that make the game look far easier on the eyes.
3Fallout: New Vegas
A Better Looking Apocalypse
Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout: New Vegasisan incredible RPG, but it’s not a stretch to say that it is definitely one of the uglier games, even when it was first released.
That didn’t stop it from gaining fame as arguably the best pure Fallout RPG out there. But as time has rolled on, the poor visuals have only worsened.
Today, thanks to the fantastic modding community at Nexus, you don’t have to worry about that.
Those ugly faces and drab backgrounds get a serious boost through the mods out there, and while you can’t quite polish it to meet modern standards, you can definitely get something akin toFallout 4graphics here.
It’s much needed, and it makes the lights of the cities pop, makes the combat look better, and, best of all, those VATS sequences now look much prettier as well.
2Final Fantasy XI
A Magical Revamping
Final Fantasy 9
While some of the above mods are full-on overhauls of graphics from the original games,Final Fantasy XIhas something unique called theMoguri Mod.
This uses AI upscaling to smooth out textures, make backgrounds clearer, and, most importantly, make the faces of the characters smoother, allowing us to see what Square Enix probably initially wanted us to see when the game first came out.
It’s a simple mod at its core, but it makes playing Final Fantasy XItoday a joy, and all the colors and textures that suffered behind the PS1’s limitations now burst onto the screen, with cutscenes looking amazing, magic attacks streaking across the screen in bright color and the world itself finally coming to life.
1The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Whatever World You Want It To Be
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Skyrimwas released in 2011; graphics-wise, it was a marvel at the time.
The world itself was full of breathtaking vistasthat many of us can still picture in our mind’s eye right now as we look back fondly.
It was iconic, but it’s now 13 years later, and vanilla Skyrim, no matter what edition you play, just doesn’t look good anymore.
That matters little if you’re a PC user though, becauseSkyrimhas quite possibly themost active modding community of all time.
There are thousands of graphics mods to choose from. Some completely rework the entire landscape as we know it, while others turn characters into next-gen-looking models or aesthetically change the entire art design of the game.
At the height of your modding powers,Skyrimcan look identical to any next-gen game out today and, in some cases, even better.
This, of course, takes a decent amount of time to figure out and tinker with, but if you love the game and just want it to look better, you quite literally have thousands of options to make that happen.
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