Video game publishers should let you actually play old games

This latest re-release on Steam is significant for the simple, somewhat unfortunate reason that Valve’s platform is dramatically more popular than GOG, meaning more people will now find out they can try these survival-horror-defining PSX games. And if they do, they’ll be in for a treat. While Resident Evil 2 and 3 have both received expensive remakes that bring modern AAA polish to these much slower-paced titles, the originals have a specific appeal that goes beyond nostalgia. Instead of the over-the-shoulder perspective introduced with Resident Evil 4, the initial trilogy uses a fixed camera to create mounting tension. Dutch angles and claustrophobic shots create a persistent anxiety that something horrible is lurking just out of sight.

Then there’s the somewhat infamous “tank controls,” where hitting left and right on the d-pad causes the character to swivel instead of instantly moving in that direction. While players were eager to move on to analog movement by the PS2 era, in retrospect, this more limiting scheme sets up pure fumbling panic, creating moments that turn you into the horror protagonist who keeps tripping and dropping their keys as they try to get away from the monster.

It should be said that these ports aren’t perfect, and Steam users have eagerly pointed out lots of edge cases that will annoy certain groups of people. Out of the box, these games don’t work on Steam Decks, requiring you to muck around with your computer’s registry table, which is not a thing you want to be doing. Unlike the GOG version, Capcom decided to add DRM to the Steam one for some reason, a form of anti-piracy software that has the fun added benefit of making games run worse. There isn’t an easy way to set these games to their original 4:3 aspect ratio while in full screen, and the character models are much higher resolution here than the backgrounds, robbing some of the impressionistic dithering effect found on the PSX versions.

Even with these missteps, the bar is so low for how most big publishers treat these old games that Capcom has mostly cleared it by simply re-releasing this Resident Evil trilogy in basically any form, even if GOG twisted the company’s arm to get them there. Square has also been busy putting basically every mainline Final Fantasy on Steam, and there is a random grab bag of other older titles on the platform (Freddie Fish, anyone?), but publishers like Nintendo would rather bring people to court than let you easily access their back catalog outside their subscription ecosystem.

It’s a shame because if more people were able to give retro games a chance, they’d probably be surprised. This isn’t to say that all old games are good and new ones are bad, but as design tropes and audience tastes have changed over time, certain genres and styles have largely been left behind (i.e, tank controls and fixed camera angles). Every era has trend-chasing and some amount of homogenization, but if you weren’t there to get sick of those trends in the first place, then going back will be a blast. The good news is that thanks to the work of preservationists, tech tinkerers, and digital buccaneers, it’s certainly possible to play a big chunk of gaming history through emulators. The bad news is that it’s asking a lot of most people to jump through these legally dubious hoops (emulating is perfectly legal most of the time, but downloading ROMs and ISOs—the files corresponding to specific games—aren’t so much).

Despite what game company CEOs may want you to think, there is value to be found in old games. They’re an essential link to the medium’s history that can also simply be fun, or weird, or just plain interesting. Maybe, with enough pressure and online activism, game companies will eventually treat their previous work as art that deserves preservation rather than software that can be “fixed” in a sequel or remake.