Capcom ‘took a lot of convincing’ to bring the original Resident Evil games to GOG, exec says

Capcom was initially against GOG’s request to add the original PC versions of Resident Evil 1, 2 and 3 to its store, according to a GOG executive.

The original 1996 PC version of Resident Evil was added to GOG in June 2024, followed by the original PC versions of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3.

All three re-releases were updated to ensure full compatibility with Windows 10 and 11, and received new rendering options and various other modern fixes such as support for modern controllers, improved cutscene timing, an improved video player, an improved DirectX game renderer and modes like 4th Survivor, Tofu and Mercenaries unlocked from the start.

However, according to a new interview with The Game Business, GOG‘s senior business development manager Marcin Paczynski says Capcom was initially against the idea, and was more interested in getting players to try out the modern remakes of each game.

“Capcom were like, ‘we have all of those remakes. It’s already the superior experience to those games’,” recalled Paczynski, who says he was one of the GOG members who led the project.

“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.”

Paczynski says the response to the re-releases proved that GOG’s argument was correct, and that there’s still a desire to play the original games as they were originally presented at the time.

“When we launched [Resident Evil] on GOG, the reception was absolutely phenomenal,” he said. “We have 94% positive reviews on GOG for all of them. And that was also reflected in the sales.

“It proved that there is an audience for this. The classical versions, the versions we all remember from our childhood, they still hold a lot of value.”

Seemingly won over, Capcom then gave the nod for GOG re-releases of the original PC ports of Dino Crisis and Dino Crisis 2, which were added to the store in January 2025.

All five games are part of GOG’s Preservation Program, a scheme announced last November which is designed to ensure that classic games remain playable on modern systems forever, even after their developers have stopped supporting them.

Paczynski estimated that there will be around 350 games in the Preservation Program by the end of 2025, saying: “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.”