Where do your favorite video game textures come from?

The internet is full of the most curious people and projects. Hardly a day goes by without hearing about some new crazy idea on social media or forums. The collaborative spirit has always been a hallmark of much of the community, and in the world of video games, we have witnessed this from the early days of the internet. From people making mods for various titles to those who create backups of their own games and upload them to the web as ROMs (bless them), even those who recover prototypes and canceled games, scan old printed publications related to gaming, and so much more. To this colorful group of enthusiasts, defenders of video game preservation, we can now add a new variant: those who track down the photographs that bring life to the textures used in video games from all eras.

Render96 VGTP (Video Game Texture Preservation)

Render96 VGTP, as its name implies, is a group dedicated to preserving the textures used in video games across all eras. Its members and collaborators trace the original photographs used, determine their source, and create an online repository to ensure their preservation for the future. On their official Twitter account, we can find hundreds of examples and witness how arduous this process can be. It not only involves tracing the images but, in many cases, making certain edits to confirm that they are indeed the same images and not others. These textures range from those used in various assets within games to box covers, cartridge artwork, promotional images, and even extend to the backgrounds of several Pokémon cards.

Alongside their meticulous research work, the group collects donations through Patreon. These funds are used, among other things, to purchase the original discs where many of these photographs are stored. The photos are then uploaded to their online repository so the community can download them for free.

A Fascinating Effort

It’s incredibly interesting to see the discoveries they frequently share on social media. They unearth textures from games on various platforms and by major companies such as SEGA, Nintendo, Capcom, Namco, Rare, and more. What stands out is how often the same sources appear, unbeknownst to us, bringing life to countless assets in different projects. In some cases, a single image may have been used across a vast number of different games.

Below, I’ve included some of the findings that caught my attention the most, but I strongly encourage you to visit their Twitter account and experience it for yourself. You won’t regret it!