I did not want the "Re-elected" version or whatever.

I did not want the Epic Games malware in the game.

I was happy with the version of the game I already had.

Can I restore what I once owned, or is Deep Silver just allowed to steal it out of my library?

Nobody cares. The game is the same. Crossplay goes through the Epic Online Service. The game works without it, just run the game through the main executable. Revert to the prior version via Galaxy or use the offline installer that's still outdated. The game is not "stolen", it's updated and renamed.

Thank you for shilling the publisher interest. Hope you're getting paid.

Yes, you can restore the old version in two ways.

1. Download and keep the current offline installers, they are still original.
2. Use Galaxy to roll back to the previous version.

About the "why": SR4 Re-Elected offers Crossplay between GOG, Steam and Epic. The common platform to do that is EOS.

Thank you for being a stereotypical complainer, hope you're feeling better after letting it all out :)

The game is not the same. We lost some DLC, the supersaints and thank you pack specifically, possibly the tf2 dlc as well, we also lost borderless window mode. And this is if the game runs for you at all. A LOT of people are reporting the same problem I have. Game just crashes instantly upon trying to load/start a new game. I personally do not care about the epic games stuff myself, So, no, it is an objective downgrade to the game. We get less than before. Period.

Yeah not exactly thrilled after seeing the message about needing an Epic Account for cross play either. That kind of is the opposite of what cross play stands for. No Man's Sky is cross play yet I don't need a Steam account to play with my friends who have it on there while I have it on GOG so why do I now need an account on another platform to play multiplayer with them other then for that platform to get boosted above the one I chose to get the game on instead which in this case is GOG and I actively refuse to make an Epic account because I do not care to support them and games like Fortnite. I also do not like having versions of my games replaced in this way either without some way of still downloading the old version. Thankfully I do keep copies of the old installers so this won't really effect me but I feel for those that it does who now don't have access to the old version. To those that are complaining that people are complaining about this understand that we are trying to hold GOG to a higher standard because we care about this platform and want to see it do better then Steam, Epic and the like and not stoop to their level of just feeding us whatever version of a game suits them best. I also would still love to see a copy of the original Doom 3 at least along side of if not separate from the BFG Edition but that is beside the point here and in my case I actually own a physical copy of the original game for that one so I make due and hope things can change and we can't expect change if we don't make our voices heard and to sit back and tell people to "deal with it" is to openly admit you don't understand why we are upside and don't care to learn.

Well, it is obvious that we need something to cross play.
The dev decides which communication platform he relies on.
See it this way: Steam players need that as well :) There is. Read the posts above. You keep the old installers anyway, but also Galaxy allows the installation of the old version (so does Steam). That was actually announced by the devs - not on GOG of course, everyone ignores GOG pretty much.

GOG keeps reinforcing my decision to quit buying from them. Nothing prevented them from having platform agnostic MP.

That's true and they decided to go with a well established system instead of implementing their own.

This is the PC's weak point. On game consoles you have one shop, one account, one online infrastructure: Developers can use it and be done with it. On the PC you have many different vendors, everyone trying to be the dominant one. Developsers either have to side with one of them or create interfaces for all of them or have costs implementing their own thing (causing to require even more accounts). That will always be a problem on the PC and we will complaining about devs doing this or doing that in decades to come. The only solution would be if Valve/Epic/Microsoft/GOG and all the others got their act together and would use one common system, but that ain't gonna happen.


Btw, which system did you have in mind? Is there someone who offers such systems ready to use?

That developers self-host and offer the same to users. Dedicated server and Direct IP worked fine for many years and still would. There was Gamespy but, I don't think there's a market for a service like that if Steam and the others foot the bill or offer cheap hosting rates for MP. I don't expect anything to change back but the only thing stopping developers and publishers is greed, incompetence, or laziness.

Dunno about the GOG version, But the "Legacy" install for the Steam version is the exact same one as the normal, not the Pre-Epic build that was promised.

I tried it on GOG, restored the version from 20170523.
That is actually the version from back then. Borderless Window mode is available. When loading an old savegame, the warning about formlerly present and now missing DLCs is gone:

Seems like Re-elected should contain 25 dlc's. There seemsto be 35(?) in total for the game.

It's amazing that no matter how bad publishers treat gamers, there are still so many around who think they must play white knights for absolutely reprehensible practices by morally bankrupt, insanely greedy companies.

We get games released for full price that don't work, the simps defend it.
Publishers go and change what we have on our PCs, what we bought and paid for, without our consent, giving us just the decision to not have the game at all or do it their way, simps defend it.
Skins for a single weapon or a single character can by now cost dozens if not hundreds of dollars, when 7–8 years ago, 1,99 seemed unreasonable and YET STILL SIMPS DEFEND IT.

It's the equivalent of being spit in the face, kicked in the nuts and thrown on the dirty streets and reacting with, thank you master, can I have more of that?

Yes, this time there is a workaround, but it just shouldn't happen in the first place, if I don't want it.
And I know this thread is from last December, but reading the comments from some here, was so absolutely infuriating, I had to react.