Resident Evil (1996) Review

Thirty years after it defined the survival-horror genre, the original Resident Evil has finally arrived on Steam in a standalone release — not the 2002 GameCube remake most modern players know, but the actual 1996 PlayStation original, rebuilt for modern PCs with all four original localisations and, for the first time in the West, its uncut, full-colour gore cutscenes intact. It's a genuinely significant release for genre history. It's also, according to the people who've actually installed it, a release that Capcom has quietly made worse than it needed to be.

Still a masterclass in tension, thirty years on

The core experience holds up far better than its age might suggest. Reviewers who came to the series through the 2002 remake or later HD remaster consistently report being surprised by how well the original plays once its idiosyncrasies click — tank controls included. Several point out specific ways the original actually outpaces the remake that supposedly replaced it: movement and turning are faster, door-transition cutscenes can be skipped entirely rather than sat through on every playthrough, and the mansion itself is described as rawer and more unsettling, with longer, more liminal corridors than its more detailed but busier remake counterpart. One reviewer with a long personal history across every version of the game — from the 1996 original through the Director's Cut, GameCube remake, DS port, HD remaster, and PS5 re-release — singles this Steam version out as the definitive one specifically because it restores the full uncut cutscenes that even some prior "complete" editions omitted.

The puzzle-box mansion design, deliberately scarce ammunition, and item-box inventory management that made the original so tense in 1996 are still doing real work here. Multiple reviewers describe getting genuinely lost in rediscovering rooms, keys, and shortcuts they'd half-forgotten, and the absence of the remake's added Crimson Head enemies is specifically called out as making exploration feel calmer and less punishing on repeat visits — a different, more contemplative kind of horror than the remake's escalating pressure. For players willing to meet 1996-era design conventions on their own terms, the underlying game is described repeatedly as aging remarkably well.

A DRM layer that undermines the release

The recurring, serious complaint across the review base has nothing to do with the game itself and everything to do with how Capcom packaged it. This release adds the Enigma Protector anti-tamper DRM system, and reviewers report it comes at a real cost: stuttering, and a measured 10-15fps performance hit compared to the DRM-free version of the identical port sold on GOG. Several reviewers explicitly recommend buying the GOG release instead — the exact same restoration work, without the added protection layer, and with cloud saves that this Steam version lacks entirely.

The list of missing basics compounds the frustration. There are no Steam achievements, no trading cards, and the Steam overlay is reported as unreliable or non-functional for some players at launch. Windowed mode is described as broken by multiple reviewers, and official Steam Deck verification wasn't in place at launch, with players instead relying on Proton Experimental to get it running — later reports suggest this improved over time, but it wasn't there on day one. One reviewer frames it bluntly: this feels less like a proper Steam release and more like the GOG installer with an added layer of DRM bolted on top, for the same price.

Part of a bigger classic-catalogue push

This release didn't arrive alone — Capcom rolled it out alongside Dino Crisis and Dino Crisis 2 as part of a wider push to bring its PS1-era back catalogue to modern PC storefronts, and reviewers who bought into more than one of these releases report the same DRM and missing-features complaints across all three. That consistency is worth noting for anyone weighing this purchase: it isn't a one-off packaging mistake specific to this title, but an approach Capcom appears to be applying across the whole classic-catalogue initiative, for better or worse.

For players specifically motivated by convenience — Steam library integration, cross-device cloud saves via Steam Family or Remote Play, or simply wanting everything under one storefront — that consistency across the line is a real factor. For everyone else, the calculus is simpler: the game itself is worth experiencing, or re-experiencing, but the platform it's wrapped in here isn't doing it any favours.

Is this the version to buy?

The awkward truth is that "should you buy this" and "should you buy it here" are two different questions with different answers. If the goal is simply to experience the original Resident Evil in its most complete, uncut form, the answer is an easy yes — nothing about the DRM changes what the game itself is, and reviewers who push past the technical friction still come away recommending it. If the goal is a clean, feature-complete modern storefront experience — achievements to chase, cloud saves that sync automatically, a Steam Deck badge you don't have to second-guess — the honest answer from the people who've actually bought it is to grab the GOG release instead and skip this one entirely, even though it means giving up Steam library integration.

That's an unusual position for a Steam release to be in, and it's worth being upfront about rather than glossing over: this is a case where the storefront a game is sold on genuinely changes the recommendation, not just the price.

Final Verdict

Resident Evil's original 1996 release remains a genuinely important, still-effective piece of survival horror, and this restoration — uncut cutscenes and all — is the most complete PC version of it yet made available. That alone makes it a worthwhile purchase for fans of the series and the genre it helped create. But Capcom's decision to wrap a beloved classic in anti-tamper DRM that measurably hurts performance, while stripping out achievements, cloud saves, and reliable overlay support, is a frustrating own-goal on a release that should have been an uncomplicated celebration. Buy it for the game. Just go in knowing the GOG version offers the identical experience without the baggage.