Despite all the lavish modern remakes, there's a certain magic about the PS1-era Resident Evil trilogy – the tank controls, spooky pre-rendered settings, and Jill sandwich camp all combine to create a survival horror experience still worth returning to. But Capcom itself doesn't seem to see the allure of its own old games. After all, why would you want to play those dusty old relics when the shiny new remakes are available?
That's what Capcom said when it was first approached by CD Projekt's digital store GOG about re-releasing the classic PC versions of Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3. GOG's senior business development manager Marcin Paczynski was "one of the people spearheading the project," and he tells The Game Business that "convincing Capcom" of the value of these old games was a particular challenge.
"That was actually their main counter argument when we were trying to bring back the classic games," Paczynski says. "They were like, 'Okay, we have all of those remakes. It's already the superior experience.' So they didn't really see the value in bringing back the classical versions, the vanilla ones."
Look, folks. If I were to make a list of my favorite games of the past decade, the Resident Evil 2 remake in particular would easily rank in the top 10. Excellent? Yes. Meaningfully expanded over the original? Also yes. But if you put a gun to my head, you still could not convince me to spit out the idea that it's a "superior" replacement to the 1998 classic. It's an incredible companion piece, but in no way does it render its predecessor obsolete.
"It took a lot of convincing that, 'Hey, guys, there is an audience that has a lot of memories about those games, and they would love to be able to experience exactly the same game again,'" Paczynski continues. "So thankfully we were able to convince them. They trust us into working on one of their biggest IPs, if not the biggest."
The effort paid off, too, as Paczynski says the games got an "absolutely phenomenal" reception. "We had like 94% positive reviews on GOG for all of them, and that was also reflected in the sales. It proved there is an audience for that type of game, so it doesn't matter if the game was remade or not. The classical versions, you know, the versions we all remember from childhood, they still hold a lot of value."
There's a reason we still keep a few PS1 titles in our list of the best Resident Evil games.
