Capcom has done a (mostly) great job at remaking its classic Resident Evil games for modern audiences. While the remakes are great, especially Resident Evil 2 remake, fans have been clamouring for re-releases of the series’ classic entries as Capcom continues to move forward with new entries like Resident Evil Requiem.
On PC, fans are finally being answered with the GOG releases of the original Resident Evil trilogy. However, it seems unlikely that Capcom will bring the classic games to modern consoles with new ports as the company sees its remake projects as the “superior experience” to the PlayStation originals.
Speaking to The Game Business, GOG senior business development manager Marcin Paxzynski explained that Capcom was initially against the idea to bring the classic Resi games to PC as part of GOG’s preservation initiative due to the existence of the remakes.
“Capcom were like, ‘we have all of those remakes. It’s already the superior experience to those games’,” Paczynski told the outlet. ““They didn’t really see the value in bringing back the vanilla versions. It took a lot of convincing that there is an audience that has a lot of memories about those games, and would love to experience exactly the same game again. Thankfully, we were able to convince them.”
While Capcom didn’t like the idea initially, the response to the new GOG versions of the original trilogy has proven to be critically and commercially popular. “When we launched on GOG, the reception was absolutely phenomenal,” Paczynski said. “We have 94% positive reviews on GOG for all of them. And that was also reflected in the sales.”
Paczynski explained that the popularity of the new re-releases, which eventually led to the re-releases of Dino Crisis and its sequel, “proved that there is an audience for this”. While the remakes do exist for more modern versions of the games, there are many that want to reexperience “the versions we all remember from our childhood”.
It’s also worth noting that the Resident Evil remakes are not direct recreations of their originals. For example, Resident Evil 2 Remake—while phenomenal—doesn’t include the zapping system of the original, and the majority of the fanbase (myself included) was disappointed by the massive cuts made to Resident Evil 3 Remake.
For Paczynski, the success of Capcom’s classic horror games through the GOG Preservation Program shows that there’s hope for more games to be made playable on modern systems. That the childhoods of millions of gamers won’t just be locked to their original hardware or lost forever.
“The hope is in the future, when you are thinking about buying a 10-year-old game, the first thing that you’ll check is if it’s available in the Program,” they explained.
