New texture packs are now available for Cyberpunk 2077, the open-world role-playing game developed by CD Projekt Red, improving the looks of NPCs considerably without completely overhauling their vanilla look.
The new texture packs, which include AI-upscaled textures, improve all of the unnamed NPCs faces, hair, and beards. Both packs with 4K and 2K options for the upscaled textures, so even those running the game on a GPU with limited VRAM can take advantage of them. The two texture packs can be downloaded by heading here for the upscaled faces and here for the upscaled hair and beards.
Cyberpunk 2077 relies heavily on post-processing and native upscaling for its graphics. That means that most of the vanilla textures are very low resolution, with the game engine upscaling most of them at least 2x but as much as 32x the original, depending on your graphics settings.
That technique allows CDPR to package the game much smaller, but the quality of this on-the-fly upscaling is nowhere near what carefully trained and chosen upscale models can do with powerful AI software. Since vanilla textures are already being upscaled, there shouldn't be much of a difference in VRAM usage between these mods and putting your Texture Quality setting to High.
The biggest improvement is increased definition.
While modders continue to improve the game and introduce new features and content, CD Projekt Red is working on the big Cyberpunk 2077 expansion called Phantom Liberty. This expansion, which will feature a new character called Reed, who will be played by renowned actor Idris Elba, will be the most expensive expansion to date by the studio.
Cyberpunk 2077 is now available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One worldwide. The Phantom Liberty expansion will release on PC and current generation consoles sometime this year.
