Black & White 2 modder releases 4K texture pack

A Black & White 2 modder has released a 4K texture pack for the game.

Modder merendas235 uploaded the 6GB texture pack to NexusMods on 16th May (thanks, DSOGaming).

The video below is a comparison of Black & White 2 running with and without the texture pack.

Black & White 2 was developed by Lionhead Studios and published by EA in October 2005. It's blend of real-time strategy and god game was designed by Peter Molyneux and Ron Millar.

Lionhead embarked upon the development of Black & White 2 as part of an expansion of the studio. "What was 30 brilliant genius people, over the course of a year or so after the release of Black & White, expanded up to 100 people," Molyneux told Eurogamer as part of our in-depth feature on the history of Lionhead.

"That was a big mistake. We should have stayed small and focused rather than get big and diluted."

Guildford-based Lionhead had spread itself too thin as its headcount spiralled out of control. At one point in 2005, nearly 300 people worked there. Projects included a Fable expansion, Fable 2, Black & White 2, The Movies and other unannounced, exploratory projects that never saw the light of day, such as Unity, a partnership between Lionhead and Tempest 2000 creator Jeff Minter.

The development of Black & White 2, which went on at the Frederick Sanger Road office under the newly-formed Black & White Studios subsidiary, was chaotic as the team swelled to 100 people.

"Black & White 2 was a total mess," one person who worked on the game said. "We had a dev manager who came from British Rail, and he lasted three weeks. The guy absolutely shat himself when he joined. The pace of change was just so much compared to what he was used to. It can be very seat of your pants, and certainly at that time it really was."

The Movies came out in late 2005 and failed to meet the sales expectations of publisher Activision. That same year Black & White 2 came out and failed to meet the sales expectations of publisher EA. Microsoft eventually bought the company in 2006. Microsoft shut Lionhead down 10 years later, in 2016.

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