Update [Wed 26th June, 2024 09:45 GMT]: Almost a week after that mysterious PEGI rating for Resident Evil on PC, we now have an update.
Several outlets (including Gematsu, Polygon, and PC Gamer) are all reporting that Resident Evil is now available on GOG. This release includes quality-of-life improvements (such as full support for modern controllers) and enhanced compatibility for modern platforms and is also claimed to be the fully uncut version of the game (with all of the blood and gore intact). According to these reports, Resident Evil 2 & Resident Evil 3 are also expected to hit the platform at a later date (you can wishlist these online now at the links provided).
You can visit the original game's store page here, where it is currently priced at £8.99. A video on the history of the series has also been produced featuring the YouTuber Suzi Hunter.
Original Story [Tue 18th Jun, 2024 14:45 BST]: The original 1996 release of Resident Evil has been rated for PC this week, sparking speculation that it could be coming to modern platforms in the near future.
The rating was posted by the European game rating authority PEGI and spotted by Gematsu on Twitter (before being picked up by VGC).
The listing describes the new release as "a PC port of the original Resident Evil game (1996)" and has a PEGI-18 rating for "depictions of graphic violence to human characters" and "intense and sustained horror sequences".
Resident Evil was previously released on PCs in Japan in December 1996 and 1997 in North America and Europe but currently isn't offered on Steam.
It also isn't widely available on other modern storefronts either, with the only way to buy the game on current-gen systems being the PlayStation Plus classics version, which is based on the 1997 Director's Cut.
A rerelease of the original game would therefore be a pretty welcome development, but it remains to be seen what other platforms this will reissue will come to. We'll try to keep you posted as more information becomes available.