It feels like every day another videogame is gone forever. In the age of digital storefronts, old versions of games are delisted for remasters, struggling live-service releases are pulled offline, and it's increasingly difficult to play myriad classics in the way that was originally intended. The history of games continues to slip through our fingers, and as technology marches on it gets harder and harder to keep hold of what we once had. This problem is exactly why GOG has launched the Preservation Program. Now, classic PC games like Fallout, XCOM UFO Defense, Warcraft, Resident Evil, and more will run smoothly forever, and more are on the way.
The GOG Preservation Program is a new initiative with one goal: to "ensure classic games remain playable on modern systems, even after their developers stopped supporting them." GOG is already home to countless classics with the original Resident Evil trilogy, Interplay's Fallout games, and Alpha Protocol chief among them, and this program opens the door to even more of the best PC games surviving on modern and future hardware.
"We're launching the GOG Preservation Program, an official stamp on classic games that GOG has improved, with a commitment of our own resources to ensure their compatibility with modern systems and make them as enjoyable to play as possible," GOG writes.
"This initiative was created to make games live forever and once again bring the utmost attention to what the center of our work has been for the last 16 years: videogame preservation."
GOG is starting the Preservation Program with the re-release of 100 old-school games from its back catalog, with even more games planned to join the ranks going forward. The list already includes the likes of Alpha Protocol, the original Resident Evil trilogy, Diablo, Fallout, System Shock 2, SWAT 4, and The Witcher.
According to GOG, if a game has the Preservation Program stamp it "ensures that those games will run on your PC hassle-free, and you can enjoy them just as much as you did the first time you played them." That means you can easily buy, download, and play the classic game without any trouble.
If you're looking for more, we've got all the biggest free Steam games to stop you from breaking the bank, and some of the best old games to take a trip down memory lane.
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