Modder ‘Xenjoi85’ has released a 10GB HD Texture Pack for Gearbox’s Aliens game, Aliens: Colonial Marines. This pack upscales all of the game’s textures, which means that it’s a must-have for everyone who wants to replay it.
Going into more details, the modder has used AI tools to upscale the original textures by two times. As such, the new textures retain the art style of the original ones. At the same time, the new textures look more detailed than before.
To showcase this HD Texture Pack, Xenjoi85 shared the following comparison screenshots. These will give you a pretty good idea of what you can expect from it. So, be sure to view them before downloading.
It’s also worth noting that this pack should be compatible with the TemplarGFX ACM Overhaul Mod. For those who did not know, ACM Overhaul is a mod that focuses on three key areas: AI, Gunplay and Graphics. Each area has been heavily tweaked, playtested, balanced, and tweaked some more to get the best out of every mechanic possible.
Aliens: Colonial Marines was one of the first games for which I experimented with SweetFX. Back in 2013, I wanted to make the game feel closer to the movies. That SweetFX Mod could really improve the game’s art style. Ah, the good old days of tweaking SweetFX.
Aliens: Colonial Marines came out in 2013, and it was a huge disappointment. While its E3 demo was running in real-time on a high-end PC, the final product was severely downgraded. Not only that, but the game had major AI and gameplay issues. Things got so bad that some gamers even filed a lawsuit against SEGA and Gearbox.
Anyway, before closing, I should mention some other AI-enhanced texture packs that you can download. For instance, we have packs for Far Cry 3, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Blood 2, Dark Souls 2, FEAR, and Batman: Arkham Asylum have also received their own. And then we have those for Resident Evil: Revelations, Revelations 2, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Resident Evil 7, and Tomb Raider: Legend. Let’s also not forget this one for Palworld and this one for Thief 2014. A few days ago, we also shared one for Fallout: New Vegas. On top of that, you can find a similar mod for Baldur’s Gate 3 and BioShock Infinite.
Have fun!

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email










Let me just grab some popcorn…
The textures look OK, but I'm not sure if it's worth it to download a 10GB texture pack for this game.
Don't get me wrong, the game is fun (if you fix the typos in the config files that cause the AI to be broken), but I'm not sure if you're really going to care what resolution the textures are while playing this. Maybe if you have a 4K monitor? Most people don't actually have those, so…
I do have a 4K monitor and let me tell you that there is barely any noticeable difference, you'll only notice them if you get really, really close to them and stand there specifically because you want to see the difference. But when playing normally during gameplay? You'll literally notice nothing.
In fact, I even noticed that some of the "upscaled" textures actually pixelated them and made them look worse in some ways, just look at these images for example:
The first image is the one with normal textures and the second image is the one with "upscaled" textures, the wall on the right looks better, but notice how at the center of that "switch" (or whatever it's called) introduced noticeable pixels in the bottom:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ae88c65e3f3edd646f6281dd849d7f72ee6fd5bae82653589d24eae8045f9f6f.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cec54b1df139bd0102301fc12f6e71eef3474ab9c8935c4e0c8508b31ff5b85d.jpg
Not trying to be negative, but that's a hard nope even for 4K monitor owners.
I think that's compression artifacting. A lot of games use uncompressed or lightly compressed textures since DirectX texture compression reduces quality noticeably. If whoever upscaled the textures used DXT5 compression, it would certainly cause artifacting.
The original textures were 512×512 and this texture pack only resized them to 1024×1024. The difference should be noticeable even on a Full HD monitor.
There are so many comparison images that John hasn't posted them here yet (an overall of 31 images. Check them on Nexus as Disqus compresses images' resolutions when uploaded on Disqus):
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7da5ca3a662be10e6fbdd397113f80c7d7b7cc75e95c2f16acaab7f5077acbfa.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b525514114c212db97f4894d2c3b9ee4f16c5805f55ee557d9ab32042cc911c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/50b8b5dab9e511247f50d7a9533ee75466a8377d50d36966452dabd98cc9d287.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/093e6017affec750fa20e3e05f30991857b87f8efc2acb938f3995efd5b7d64c.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/da665c2215bb8462f5cb1d1b88fe389e5e3fff627249c15dc878b56328920cae.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17caaec0a35863258ebcaca9ce2051477cc17e7ac59e96fa5dc49e729bdb8ff2.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ccb716678f87564a6ae586dce9c925e1df4e219f45ca70a69ebeef90c12e55d5.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ccb716678f87564a6ae586dce9c925e1df4e219f45ca70a69ebeef90c12e55d5.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5a479eac76ecb0c211b225e584106bbbf26a1167b2b77ebe27aec986e91f6987.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c89480e321f7621135be1611e58b123a3cc2ec4bb5d09db86b4721d4bca0b2ce.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e45e1136f2f791cf4fa893bf101a1a0f7c646d040b74293d2715d0ed7ef37c28.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4db2c322cab55a1f1ee06893c2b403dae70e7925d81e5af4eee66315ac2d2ac7.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cec54b1df139bd0102301fc12f6e71eef3474ab9c8935c4e0c8508b31ff5b85d.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ae88c65e3f3edd646f6281dd849d7f72ee6fd5bae82653589d24eae8045f9f6f.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ca0c96900889dfe40a4250204b1655de9c1c48ddc9f084ebd7eb4317bf3031d.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba58adc76407868ba3339c61f8d97fc93fcd8a714242c4fc854a71b19b45c252.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2a959056f6754403416d160a2d0af108034cb31e08eddf8a12146d6b817985e7.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0befaad2e0596e52654ff6703b74f23ed67e7a84f4508fc71450d1f13b28790.jpg
The fact that this game and Duke Nuke Forever happened and Gearbox somehow still manages to sell games and has fans because of a cringe r*tarded FPS series makes me realize why this industry is still alive despite all the mediocrity that surrounds it
I give them a pass on Nukem given its history before reaching gearbox. ACM though… #NeverForget
ACM, Halo PC port and Nightfire PC port prove that Gearbox can shamelessly release the most effortless games and call it a day, this also proves that there was a chance for DNF to be good in the end but it just ended in one of the worst hands possible.
Personally I'd have preferred a gameplay patch first, even after 'correcting' the ai code with the a patch that has to match perfectly with the game version (or it fails), I found that every alien made a bee line for the player and ignored all the npc counterparts in the game.
There are already patches out there for that.
I downloaded the mod and the UE2/3 texture installer, but the game crashes to the desktop whenever I try to start a new game or load a saved game. I'm using templar overhual mod (because it makes ACM actually fun to play) and maybe that's the problem.
Holy cow! The modders have finally fixed the ugly colour grading making the game much more comparable to the E3 demo.
TemplarGFX's ACM Overhaul Mod + Patrxgt's Ultra Config
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b71a9c00743e170a18ecf424cfd18bf4db88e01900a65247cba80cb6e7c217aa.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c2e9b741ac20e87e812f7ecc4cdfa3526c8738dd4f7f0940f8d514ef9cdd498.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/809b44a643a45ac22fb76b83aec2d823a45551bec78e1e9958f3c053ffa7db02.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ec3bcdee5ae10f5e7bc033c2462d3c8cfe4a63f19bea947415a177148506a95f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/46e01f140d350208ea01cfbee4a5d4fedf7eb73c638f85ace38b344c889bceaf.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/96cc4c11df4a0cb12114a92c5e5ade084a0546b8b3c14ab78758c00a00751828.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ea6afe4a6f901f60e7c295617b8566bf800bc6202fd1a7dba4c736fd7760526.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e1f3fef12abfbd4dda9d4359dc4adf222630449fafcce004bab753cfd92a503.jpg