Capcom’s Steam Return for the Original Resident Evil Trilogy Is Drawing DRM Backlash

Capcom put the original Resident Evil trilogy back on Steam on April 2, but the re-release has immediately turned into a DRM story instead of a preservation win. Kotaku reports that the new Steam versions of Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3 ship with Enigma DRM, and Steam user reports cited by IGN say the games can run poorly or fail to work correctly on Steam Deck and Linux-based setups. That turned a nostalgic catalog drop into an argument about whether Capcom is making old games harder to own cleanly.

The comparison with GOG is one reason the response has been so harsh. Kotaku notes that the same classic versions have been available on GOG DRM-free for a long time, which makes the Steam release feel like the more restrictive option rather than the more convenient one. When a legacy PC release arrives with extra compatibility concerns on the bigger storefront, players naturally start asking why the anti-tamper layer is there at all.

The controversy is also amplified by Capcom's recent history. According to Kotaku, the publisher only just rolled back the same Enigma DRM change in Resident Evil 4 after a wave of backlash. The article says the Resident Evil 4 case was especially messy because existing owners suddenly faced compatibility issues, and Digital Foundry reportedly measured performance about 20 percent worse before Capcom reversed course.

That context makes the current rollout look less like an isolated mistake and more like a strategic decision to keep prioritizing DRM even after a public failure. For retro releases, that is a risky choice. Players generally want old games on modern storefronts for better access, preservation, handheld support, and smoother installation. If middleware undercuts those benefits, the re-release starts to feel compromised from day one.

Kotaku said it had asked Capcom for an explanation when the story went live, but the immediate public debate was already clear. Unless Capcom patches the trilogy, removes Enigma, or gives a convincing rationale for the added friction, the Steam return of Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3 may be remembered less as a welcome archive move and more as another case study in DRM eroding the value of a legitimate purchase.