https://www.reddit.com/r/residentevil/comments/1dsqsh6/were_gog_a_digital_pc_gaming_platform_that_just/
Way too much to include every question and, if it got any, the corresponding answers, hit the thread itself for the complete thing:
Q: Is there a date on when RE2 and 3 will be playable?
Jed: By the end of this year we’ll have all 3 games available to play
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Q: Are the gameplay mechanics the same as the original version of the game, or the remakes, or will that be a decision the players can make?
Jed: Those are the re-releases of the original games. They play almost identically (with a bunch of QoL improvements) to how they played when they were first released.
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Q: On a technological standpoint, what was/is the trickiest part of getting Resident Evil 1-3 working on modern pc hardware?
Marcin: All language versions were practically separate builds so we needed to extensively test all 16 of them and fix many version-specific issues.
Adam: Making sure that the games are fully compatible with Windows 10 and 11 as well as all the modern graphical cards that are currently available on the market (GeForce, Radeon, Intel). Another thing was giving the games full compatibility with modern controllers including Sony DualSense and Nintendo Switch in wireless mode.
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Q: Asking for a friend on Discord: are there any plans to re-release the PC port of Megaman Legends as well?
Jed: Any plans can be made with enough wishlist votes
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: I’ve never used GOG before, how does it work? i’m definitely interested in getting all 3 OG Resident Evil games, will definitely beat playing them on my ancient PS3!
Marcin: If you’ve ever bought a game digitally, you’ll find the GOG experience familiar, though we do put a lot of effort into keeping things as clean and convenient as possible.
We have our own client – GOG GALAXY – which has a unique rollback feature, letting you switch back to an older version of a game at the click of a button, if needed.
But perhaps what sets us apart the most (and goes hand in hand with our lack of copy protection mechanisms a.k.a. DRM) are our offline backup installers. While you can just install each game via our client like anywhere else, you can also download complete, standalone installers, which you can then stash somewhere and keep them forever. So even if the Internet stopped working tomorrow, your purchased games would remain yours to keep, forever.
Adam: You are in luck friend - while I endorse the usage of old hardware, for GOG all you need is a working PC. After you buy the game and download it to your machine, you don’t even have to stay online to play the game. Just plug in a controller (or not), run the game, and enjoy!
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Q: What's your take on historical preservation of gaming? Plenty of developers and publishers are letting their games fall off the map and emulation is the only way to preserve them.
Do you guys plan on making this a bigger trend or is the Resident Evil trilogy just a once off? Personally I hope it's the former, but either way, it's great to see the original Resident Evil back in a meaningful way.
Maciej: It’s our mission and the core of who we are and the reason I’m here so I’d say we treat it pretty seriously, so no it’s not a one-off
I wouldn’t blame developers or publishers for it, I like to think (maybe naively) that they focus on creating new awesome worlds, exciting adventures, and meaningful characters and that’s great, that’s exciting. They’re also constrained by the budgets, economy, past decisions, and competition so sometimes not letting their game fall off the map would mean not getting a new one on the map. I believe in a scenario in which everyone wins, developers and publishers focus on new games, and GOG and the community behind it make sure none of the games “fall off the map” as you said.
Adam: Basically what you said friend
Marcin: We’ve been doing it for almost 16 years and we do not plan to stop now.
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Q: How much work left on Resident Evil 2 and 3? When can we see them on the store approximately?
Jed: Both of them will be released by the end of this year. And, of course, we’ll do our best to do it sooner than later
Adam: We are finalizing the extended QA phase, fixing the builds along the way. The main bulk of the work is done for both of the games, so soon™.
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Q: How the hell do you guys do it, and do you think you guys are able to get the black magic to release more of the Activision era Star Trek games and/or get the Lego Island trilogy and possibly Simpson's Hit and Run?
Marcin: It’s a mixture of hard work and dedication that is powered by the passion of the GOG community. I’d say that anything is possible.
Maciej: It takes a bunch of committed people who don’t know it’s impossible
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Q: i have a bunch of questions:
- any idea what happens to biorand / or the sourcenext version ?
- are there any further improvements planned ?
- will directors cut arrange mode variants join the current version
- will modding be available
- will there be a fix for the stuttering fmvs
Adam: SourceNext version was a Japanese-only release. We opted to use the 1997 release of the PC version of the game to be able to include all of the game’s available languages.
Adam: This was how it was presented in the original PC version of the game. For the sake of preservation, we kept those as is, without any enchantment. We only made sure that they actually show up in our version by running them through modern codecs.
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Q: Will u re-release code veronica?
Marcin: I’m sorry but I need to be boring here and say that I can’t share anything about future releases. However, if you want to see a title on GOG you can help by voting:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games#search=veronica Trust me, this really helps!
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Q: I imagine these releases were a herculean feat so thank you for all the hard work. I bought the bundle immediately and I'm super excited to play the remaining two games.
The question I have to ask is: Is there any chance of Dino Crisis?
The game recently topped Capcom's survey with 80,769 votes for: Are there any Capcom game series (including spinoff games) that you would like to see get a sequel or new game?
https://captown.capcom.com/en/super_elections/1 Dino Crisis is also immensely popular on the GOG wishlist with 5000 votes amongst a few entries.
Hopefully these numbers will help in any conversations you have together, however, I suspect you've already asked and know the answer. Fingers crossed!
Adam: If it comes to games that deserve sequels, I’d love to see new Cadillacs and Dinosaurs! Dinosaurs in games = insta-win!
Marcin: Again, continue to vote on our wishlist if you want to see a title on GOG! Can't share more right now ;)
Adam: :(
Maciej: :)
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Q: Would it be possible to bring back the Outbreak games with online functionality intact?
Marcin: Anything is possible if enough people ask for it but to bring back online functionality to a game without the source code it would need to be A LOT of people, to be painfully honest.
Maciej: If we had the source code, definitely. Look at the Dawn of War series on GOG released recently or even at STAR WARS Battlefront (Classic, 2004).
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Q: Will you ever be able to convince Capcom to release some of their modern games on GOG (that they've already removed Denuvo from)? I'm surprised they haven't bothered with their Legacy collections at the very least.
Jed: We’d love to have as many Capcom titles as possible on our platform. While we can’t promise anything, we’ll always do our best to try. Also, as mentioned earlier, voting on our Community Wishlist (
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games) helps a lot!
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Q: Is it possible we could maybe get a Director's Cut edition upgrade/DLC to RE1 in the future?
Just to be clear, I'm not complaining. I'm glad we got anything in the first place, I'm honestly surprised Capcom even agreed at all seeing as they seem to be focusing on their remakes more than anything at the moment, when it comes to RE.
Still as a fan I obviously want the most we can get out of our beloved series. Code Veronica would be amazing too. Either way I can't wait to play the original RE3!
Marcin: Unfortunately, the Director's Cut was never released on PC so it was not possible for us to do it at this time. However, with games we bring back, it’s never "fire and forget" so never say never. ;)
Adam: We based our work on the PC version of the game. Combining a PC and console version without the source code is very hard to achieve and to be honest I am not even sure if it’s even possible with this particular title.
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Q: Thanks for the work put in preserving and making these awesome games more accessible.
Has GOG received positive feedback from Capcom for the release?
What was the process for approaching Capcom to get the games released?
Is GOG aware of any criticisms raised by the community regarding some technical hiccups? i.e. in Avalanche's video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH48MyNk8AU Is there any consideration for more Capcom titles to reach GOG? (All of them ideally, just saying)
1.
Maciej: Yes, both parties collaborated closely during the project, and seeing the community reception proves that it was totally worth it!
Marcin: We worked very closely with Capcom on this release so I guess you can say that with the amazing, positive reception from the community, we can’t be unhappy.
2.
Marcin: I can’t share how it all happened exactly but let’s just say that one of the main points was convincing CAPCOM that GOG is the right partner to do this, not only because we have the skills and the passion for bringing back classic games but also because the GOG community would love to see those titles brought back. RE games were, after all, one of the most wishlisted ones.
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/
Maciej: We simply don’t want to share the recipe for our secret sauce
3.
Marcin: Very much so, and we are super grateful for it! There was one technical hiccup that is almost fixed but other than that the users seem to be very happy with this release. Of course, many things could have been done differently. Things many people might consider to even be better. However, there are many reasons why we made certain decisions. The most common one is that we did not want to compromise the game’s original look and feel. There can be also legal aspects related to what we are allowed to do or to use. There might also be technical reasons because some cool features make the game slightly unstable at times.
That said, mistakes happen and feedback like this helps us to
Maciej: We believe that any criticism comes from a place of care so we are super grateful for it. At the end of the day, if we can, we’ll fix it.
Adam: We are and we have already prepared the first hotfix that targets the character's occasional frame skipping. We are monitoring the feedback from the community. As for the comment about our version not being the SourceNext version of the game, please keep in mind that that version was only in Japanese and we wanted to bring back the originals that also have all of the available languages included.
4.
Maciej: It’s certainly on our agenda
Adam: Insert Gary_Oldman_Everyone.gif here
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Q: First of all, thank you for your commitment to game preservation! It's simply amazing that you managed to make the PC versions of the first three RE games available for us.
I just have a simple question: is it planned to add achievements to them? At least for me, they would provide a big incentive to replay these classics again.
Marcin: Thanks for the recognition. Comments like this mean a lot to us! As for the achievements. Not at this time, unfortunately. Technically this is a very complicated thing to do without the game’s source code and we have never done it before for a classic game. However, with more votes like this, we might try to do it in the future.
Adam: Short answer is no. We added achievements for Alpha Protocol because the Xbox and PC versions were very similar and it was possible to use the code from the Xbox version and make it work in the PC one. For the RE1 original, no such version exists. We are aware of projects such as RetroAchievements and this is a very cool and innovative initiative that shows that adding achievements without the source code is technically possible. I cannot promise anything but let’s just say that I would love to work on a similar project for GOG GALAXY in the future.
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Q: Thank you for preserving these games and making them accessible. I have 3 questions.
How are your thoughts on adding a door skip option? I think I played the old PC ports but if I remember right, you had to press the action button to skip the door? Could you make it so it's an automatic via a toggle instead?
What are your thoughts on the HD background mods for GameCube versions? Would you ever collaborate with them, or use AI yourself to upscale?
https://www.reshdp.com/re3/
How does Capcom feel about remastering the Outbreak games? Is this feasible and do they still have the source code? I would love it if online was accessible and we got PC ports.
1.
Adam: Yeah, we were thinking about it but in the end, we opted for this to remain on button press so that everyone can choose how they want to play the game. We might consider adding a toggle in the future though so keep the feedback flowing!
2.
Marcin: Our first goal is to preserve the original look and feel of the game as much as possible. That said, we know that there are powerful mods and tools out there not only for Resident Evil games, and let’s just say for now that we are excited to explore this direction
Maciej: Mods are great and many of them add to the immersion of a game, however, the more parties you involve in a game preservation project the more dependencies on tech and legal fronts you introduce. We strive to keep our versions compatible with the most popular mods on the release date. Sometimes it’s difficult to achieve, however as we treat every preservation project seriously and not as a one-time thing, we’re more than happy to cooperate with the modding community to help them introduce compatibility between their creations and our versions, in the end, we believe it’s up to you how you enjoy your games.
3.
Marcin: No idea. You would need to ask Capcom. Remastered Outbreak games would be awesome though
Adam: no idea
Maciej: We’ll ask
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Q: Thank you for your work, I purchased my bundle immediately!
I have a few questions, hope it’s ok:
Like others have asked (and I probably know the answer), can you pull some strings and release Code Veronica and Survivor as well?
Still related with the previous question, does GOG only works in PC videogames preservation? How do you select which games to work on? Do publishers approach you or vice-versa?
Will we ever see modern RE releases (like 7, Village) in GOG? ‘Cause those games are even in iPads!
What was the most challenging RE to work on? 1, 2 or 3?
What’s your favourite Resident Evil game?
And the final question… 6. if you could work in ANY classic videogame to bring it back to modern systems, what game would it be?
1.
Marcin: As mentioned before I can’t share anything about future releases, but make sure that if you want to see a title on GOG you vote on it here:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games This really helps!
Maciej: +1 to what Marcin wrote, at GOG we really see the power of our community so I cannot stress how important it is for our team to see the passion for game preservation that is coming from you.
2.
Marcin: For now yes - it’s PC only. However, we are looking into bringing console games to PC as well. We already have many amazing titles from NeoGeo for example.
Maciej: We’re definitely committed to Games Preservation as a whole, not bound to a particular console/platform, so we’d love to go beyond PC at some point.
Marcin: When it comes to choosing: you can say that the main thing is the wishlist:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/ (voting helps A LOT!) And for me personally, it’s also the games I love (classic and new ones).
"Do publishers approach you or vice-versa?"
Marcin: When it comes to game preservation projects it’s us reaching out. For newer games it’s a mixed bag. There are publishers and developers we’re already been working with for quite a while so there’s no need to be "approached" per se. For the newer games not available on GOG it’s often up to us to help publishers understand what GOG is about and why their games belong here. On top of that, we had quite a few games released on GOG because our community’s voice was heard by the Publisher.
Adam: Yes, community voice plays an important role in getting those games released and raising publishers awareness of GOG being there!
3.
Adam: After we finally managed to release Skyrim, Fallout 4, and God of War (2018) I believe that anything is possible. While we keep old-school classics close to our hearts we still fight for the modern instant classics out there!
Maciej: I’ve seen so many "impossible" games being released on GOG thanks to our wonderful team and the passionate community that for me it’s a matter of "when" not "if".
4.
Marcin: I wish that I could share what was the most challenging thing for me. But seriously, I’d say that from my POV all of them were equally challenging, but maybe not for the same reasons.
Adam: The hardest was RE1 as this required us to establish fluent communication between internal and external teams. After this was done, the flow of production for the rest of the games was basically the same.
All of those games required an extended testing period to make sure that the games were fully compatible with Windows 10 and 11 as well as all the modern graphical cards that are currently available on the market (GeForce, Radeon, Intel). Another thing was giving the games full compatibility with modern controllers including Sony DualSense and Nintendo Switch in wireless mode.
We have put many hours into this to make sure everything works. There were some small bugs that slipped through in RE1 but we are out there squashing them!
5.
Marcin: The best memories I have are from the time I was playing RE2 on PSX. The Front Hall (from the police station lobby) music track still gives me huge nostalgia chills when I hear it.
Adam: I’m pretty sure that RE2 was the game that introduced me to the PlayStation 1 gaming era where all those cool-looking arcade games finally moved into people's houses. I had to go to my friend’s house to play it as he was the only one in the neighborhood that had PS1. He played and I watched because I was terrible with the controller back then
Maciej: Please don’t hate me but I don’t have one, all of them are still on my bucket list. Which one would you recommend?
Marcin: Resident Evil Village, you’ll thank me later.
6.
Marcin: Oh, man. Do I need to pick just one? Let’s go with MechWarrior 3 as I was thinking about this title just this morning. My second pick would probably be Silent Hill 2 (classic) just because I listen to that amazing soundtrack to this day. That said, tomorrow I might have given a different answer.
Adam: Working on bringing back the original Final Fantasy 7 to GOG would be my personal magnum opus as it is also the best game that was ever made. It really changed my view of what video games can be as a medium and I loved the mechanics that accompanied the storytelling. Also Tifa > Aerith!!!
Maciej: If we're talking about reviving classics, Black & White tops my list. When it comes to games I’d like to see on GOG it’s C&C: Red Alert 2 - Yuri's Revenge. I really believe that Command & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection will make its way to GOG one day, mark my words!
