It's not been that long since a group of Dreamcast fan developers, led by SKMP, banded together to produce unofficial ports of Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
But already, it appears that someone has begun releasing new mods for the Dreamcast editions of the two games, replacing textures and assets from the PS2 original with their more detailed equivalent from the later Xbox release.
Falco Girgis, one of the contributors to the project (who is also currently working on his own improvements to GTA III in the form of a pull request) announced the news on Twitter/X last Thursday, posting a link to a new mod from an individual named Esppiral for the Dreamcast edition of Grand Theft Auto III. This mod includes tons of improvements to textures and models in-game (including vegetation) as well as the implementation of specular maps on the vehicles and new particle effects.
On social media, Girgis referred to Esppiral's behind-the-scenes activities as "cooking things up which you'd think would cause a Dreamcast to explode or at very least should be considered some form of console abuse". He also argued that he now thinks the environments in the Dreamcast looked "much less flat and pixelated" than those seen in the PS2 original.
Interestingly, it appears Esppiral isn't just focused on modding the port of the third game in the series either, as Girgis has also revealed that the modder is also working on a similar project for its sequel, Vice City. Among other things, this mod will fix the blocky, paw-like hands seen in the original PS2 game, swapping them out for their more detailed Xbox equivalents.
You can watch some footage of this below: