Hey everyone! If I download games from my GOG library, but install them manually (not with GOG Galaxy), will those games still receive patches and updates? Any and all help is appreciated!! Thanks so much!

Hey!

No, manually installed games are manually patched by you.

I see. That's a bit unfortunate, I was told that GOG Galaxy was not the way to go for installing games. Rather, manually installing would be a better option. But it sounds like that is not the case. I have installed a bunch of games, should I uninstall and reinstall them with GOG Galaxy? It would not take long, and I would rather have a game with patches and updates and all than a game without anything to fix any possible problems. What do you guys think?

Using a launcher or not is abolutely your choice around here. A lot of people like to install games manually, because they do not need or want another program on their system to do what they can themselves. The games stay the way they initially installed them, without the fear of any unwanted modification - although with Galaxy you can disable automatic updates. A feature I sorely missed almost a year ago on Steam with Fallout 4. Updates can break a perfectly working game just as easily as fixing a broken one.
On the other hand I like to use launchers if I have the freedom to choose them. Heroic Games Launcher makes my life so much easier on Linux, not just by managing the game library, but by providing easy to use compatibility layers for Windows games as well. If you deem Galaxy is lacking here and there, you can try other alternatives, I frequently hear Playnite as a favourite on Windows.

Sounds good!! Is there a way to find what updates are released over time, so I can manually patch the games I play? Updates and patches are a big deal for me, but I did not know that a game can actually be broken via updates instead of a beneficial change. I am debating about GOG Galaxy, not sure what I will do.

Updates depend on the goodwill of the publishers.
Some games are updated on equal terms with Steam, others are not.
For a recently released game, there's no way of knowing unless the publisher already has other games on GoG.
When they're serious about one game, they're usually serious about all of them.
GoG has a hard time imposing itself to improve things.

Some publishers are scumbags who never update, like Playway for example.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

The best ways to find out if games are patched:

https://www.gogdb.org/

https://steamdb.info/ For updates, Galaxy is a better choice, as GoG doesn't always follow up properly on offline installers.
But beware, Galaxy is a DRM.
It's all a matter of choice.

Is there a way to install my games manually, and later do a search for patches and/or updates that might be released later on?

Sure. Skip past that big blue button and download the "offline backup installers".
As for staying updated, there are a series of tools the community has created in order to make this happen. Pick the flavor you desire based on your needs.

Thanks so much for your help!! I was concerned that I would have to uninstall all of my installed GOG games and reinstall via GOG Galaxy. I would hate to neglect myself of updates and patches, I am glad there is a path I can take to still get them even with my manual installed games. The biggest problem I seem to have is the DRM issue. A question for the user "dnovraD" - what are these community tools you had mentioned, and how do I use them? Like always, any and all help is appreciated!!!

For learning what updates there are, gog just keeps track of this in your account. Near the top, for you it should say "My collection (169 games)". Or probably something like "My collection (169, 3 updated)". Clicking on that allows you to filter and see just the updated games. Updated games also have the infamous "blue dot" in the list.

Note: this is not very reliable. In the past, it's been broken multiple times for weeks and months at a time, and sometimes there are game updates which don't trigger the blue dot, which is why the above answers immediately point you to external tools and so on. But currently and mostly it just works.

Oh, and in addition to this, if you really want to find out if there were significant changes, you'll likely want to check somewhere like hot condensation of water vapor or the GOGdb.

Parkitect, bless it's Unity based heart*, does update somewhat frequently, but the changelog hasn't changed in...about a year.

*Bless as in Southern US vernacular; an expression of pity.

You can just connect the offline installed games to gog galaxy and check if there are updates manually by gog. You can also disable automatic updates on gog galaxy. The offline installed games can get updated by gog galaxy without the need to uninstall and install like in offline installers.
I only recently started using galaxy.

And i have 1 year of panda antivirus and some very small offline installers my antivirus removes when installing like Parkitect dlcs. Either i disable antivirus when i install gog games or i just update and install the games with the help of galaxy. Though installing through galaxy only without the offline installer will configure the exe of the game to launch galaxy, except you can run the games directly from the folder if you don't want galaxy to turn on when playing games or just remove galaxy command in the shortcut.

Oh i forgot sometimes there are small offline installer patches that you can just update if you have the right version. Just update them withou the need of uninstalling

First, I have to give a HUGE thanks to everyone who has responded to this thread and put up with all of my questions!! (haha j/k) You guys have been an immense help!! I have two more questions (for now)...

Fonzer stated that it is possible to get game updates with GOG Galaxy without actually installing with it. How exactly do I do that? I have a firm grasp on going to my games list and seeing which games have updates (the blue dot), but I want to make sure that I get updates from time to time.

And second, when I click on my games list and then click on a game that has that blue dot, what do I need to do to update that game...? I have never done that before, and I want to make sure that I am aware of how all of this works so that I can be done with it and have all my bases covered.

Thanks again to everyone!! Happy gaming!!