GOG launches "Preservation Program" for porting and maintaining "Good Old Games" to modern PCs with 92 classic games
Focused on providing bug fixes and controller support to keep classic games playable, as with some past GOG releases
DRM-free game storefront GOG, per the original announcement blog post, recently announced a new "Preservation Program" for retro PC games that will be maintained for and playable on modern platforms. Any game in this program is considered a "Good Old Game" preserved by GOG, and GOG is largely dedicating its own resources to maintaining many of these long-abandoned titles.
The goal is to ensure that "this version is the best and most complete available anywhere, including compatibility, manuals, and other bonus content, but also DLCs and even features not present in other editions" and that you can "expect it to work on current and future popular PC configurations." GOG will even provide technical support for these games, should it still be needed, and add modern gamepad support, where applicable.
At the time of writing, this program includes 92 games, and there are plans to add more in the coming months. The catalog will be maintained for compatibility with newer hardware and operating systems and expanded over time with more games.
For now, quite a few classic series are present here—from PC staples like Diablo and Warcraft to console ports like Resident Evil 1 through 3. There are even full articles, including changelogs detailing how the original PC version of the game came to be and what GOG did to fix it. The Resident Evil trilogy post helps establish expectations for old console port PC games, and they're looking pretty good.
All the Resident Evil games got an improved DirectX renderer, added support for V-Sync and other critical video settings (i.e., gamma correction), and even enabled anti-aliasing for enhanced visual clarity. This is just the highlight of dozens of crucial bug fixes and improvements applied to each game, but it helps establish some expectations for games in the program and to be added in the future.
There's nothing to complain about here. This is a solid game preservation win, and the ever-consumer-friendly GOG is still providing all of this DRM-free, which may benefit pirates but certainly benefits paying customers who don't appreciate invasive DRM software. Goodwill goes a long way, and good art lasts forever—GOG, at least, is doing its part by making sure PC classics last forever, too.
That said, the announcement video noticeably uses AI or text-to-speech voiceover. Considering the fancy graphics and all the people clearly employed by GOG, we can't help but find that decision tacky and a little strange—surely a single minute of voiceover from an existing employee wouldn't have added significant time to this video's release.
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Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.
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Sluggotg They have been updating games they sell on their site for years. This new program looks good. It looks like they are committed to keeping the games playable and updating some features. By far my favorite site for Games. No DRM is really nice. I buy the game, I play the game and I have backups of the programs on several different drives that I can use without being on the internet etc.Reply -
Alvar "Miles" Udell There's a lot of games that won't see that treatment. Spy Hunter (2003), Yager (2003), among many other great games that are only found on abandonware sites, if anywhere.Reply -
criticaloftom Still Boycotting GOG since 2021 over things like DRM on Hitman. They may silence on their forums , but there was a whole page load of boycotting GOG users and we will continue to be the anchor that holds them accountable to their own actions.Reply -
Ogotai heh, i guess they didnt see the part how warcraft 1 and 2, both have been redone as reforged titles like warcraft 3 was done....Reply -
williamcll
It's not GOG that decides whether or not there's DRM on a game.criticaloftom said:Still Boycotting GOG since 2021 over things like DRM on Hitman. They may silence on their forums , but there was a whole page load of boycotting GOG users and we will continue to be the anchor that holds them accountable to their own actions.