The sub genre known as marketing a flaw as a good feature? :p

Huh. Personally I don't know how I feel about the rerelease in general. Thing about Dear Esther is I think its design is fundamentally built around the fact that it's a Half-Life 2 mod. A lot of the design and aesthetic seems to come from that. Having it be a standalone release dilutes that somewhat (even if it does improve the experience), but moving the engine from Source to Unity seems to be another thing that kind of... 'removes context.'

Anyway, I appear to have received Landmark Edition on Steam on account of having the original title. The fact that it includes developer's commentary is certainly a plus. I've been playing "Everybody's Gone to the Rapture" and I also recently played through their Doom 3 mod "Conscientious Objector," so giving this a replay as part of a chineseroom retrospective will certainly be worth it.

I've always had a fondness for thechineseroom's output. I have an immense amount of respect of Pinchbeck's skill as a writer, to say nothing of Jessica Curry's horrendously overlooked musical accomplishments.

Hm, my review for Dear Esther still hasn't shown up. As a matter of fact no more reviews have shown up since submitting mine. I hope this is a glitch or something, not some sort of censorship.

Is the original version of Dear Esther included in the Landmark Edition, no matter the GOG or Steam version, because there is no mention in the gamecard on GOG and the Steam version is now unavailable ?

Thanks. I would have preferred to have the choice, like for Bioshock Remastered.

Since Bioshock Remastered was totally screwd up that is absolutely understandable. The game still is broken and probably won't be fixed. The remaster is still a good thing because of the commentary, museum and concept arts but imo there is no other reason for it at all (bugs, bad performance, more HDD space needed, not so good looking even though the textures are higher). In "Dear Esther" the changes are really subtle even though they are still there. At least both versions are working here.

And no, it has been confirmed in the steam forums that you won't get the original version if you buy the Landmark Edition.

But if I could find an old Steam key of the original Dear Esther, would it be updated automatically to the Landmark Edition ?

It may be possible that you'd still get the Landmark Edition for free if you added the old version to your library now, or it may be similar to how it worked with the Skyrim Special Edition where you had to have the original game in your library on release to get the SE for free. But in any case, the Landmark Edition is not an "upgrade" in the sense that it replaces the original one, but just like the Skyrim SE and the Bioshock Remasters, it is a separate game in your library and the old version remains playable.

Oh I see, I was convinced it was an upgrade automatically downloaded when you install the old version. That's all I wanted to know, thank you.

In my opinion, the Source version looks more realistic in some of the compartments (rocks, water and partially with lighting). The Unity version has some better textures, but overally I think it looks more "gamey" and less "depressive" than the original one.

O.K. now I am REALLY pissed. As you can read in this thread Chinese Room is not planning to add the DRM-free Landmark Edition to the humblebundle accounts. Well, even if this is completely unfair it is their choice because I never paid for it. However - I just checked my library on humble to see if they have changed their mind and noticed that the original DRM-free version (you now, the one I paid money for) now was removed FROM MY LIBRARY. Just wrote to Chinese Room and demanded them to fix this ASAP. I am so angry and they really should follow my not so friendly advice. Otherwise I might send them countless mails, facebooks posts ect. It's simply unbelievable to delete something from my account I paid for - basically imo this is theft.

And along with it gone are the soundtracks too from my Humble Indie Bundle 8. Pretty irritated.

Do you have an email address handy?

contact@humblebundle.com

Though I'd imagine they prefer most people go through https://support.humblebundle.com and submit tickets through their Zendesk system.

In the event you meant The Chinese Room - should be contact@thechineseroom.co.uk and barring that, there's the contact form through their site http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/contact/

FWIW, the music is available for me in that particular bundle under the audio tab (including the Dear Esther soundtrack). Not that it excuses either Humble or TCR for making the DRM-free build of Dear Esther in that bundle vanish into the ether without any formal notice.

I'm seeing the soundtracks but apparently no game.

No walking simulator either. :-P