PCSX2 is the go-to emulator for PlayStation 2 these days, and a wealth of updates continue to bring it new features. Now the emulator is getting support for texture dumping and replacement, which means that simple fan remasters with updated textures will soon be possible for pretty much the entire PS2 library.
Contributing developer Stenzek posted a build of PCSX2 with support for the feature as a pull request on Github over the weekend. Given that Stenzek’s other recent contributions to the project – like PCSX2’s Vulkan support – have been met with wide acclaim from the community, this one will likely be part of the main PCSX2 build soon.
The new feature allows you to dump textures from a game to your hard drive, or re-implement textures directly from a folder. Some users have already had success running original textures through an AI upscaler to gently improve the fidelity of various games with minimal effort. Or, you could just do what Stenzek did, and paste a fat chocobo to the side of the crates in Ratchet & Clank.
Old games never die, nor should they.
