GOG interview: Galaxy on Linux, preservation, and tracking down lost game rights

GOG.com is one of the best examples of game preservation, putting companies like Sony and Microsoft to shame. Established in 2008 by CD Projekt as a way of offering games not tied to protective DRM, the company has become the go-to for buying games that you can keep forever, complete with updates that help them run on modern systems.

And there are no signs of GOG stopping its preservation efforts. From the recent The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt release to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time being brought back, to offering printable boxes, it's commendable just how much the team cares about preservation. At Gamescom, I spoke to Zuzanna Rybacka, PR & Communication Specialist at GOG, all about the preservation program, memorable moments during her time so far, and what could be next.

Leading in preservation

You've been persevering with the preservation program for the last couple of years now - how's that gone so far?

Zuzanna: We have this approach with the preservation programme that there will never be a moment where we'll be like, "Oh yeah, our job here is done." It's an ongoing effort that's just going to keep and keep on giving. We've definitely learned a lot through these last two years. Time flies.

We have a lot of support from programmes such as GOG Patrons. It's patronage from people for five bucks per month, and if you want to support our mission through this, you can do that. It's a massive help, and it allows us to just spend more time, more work hours, on certain things that we wouldn't be able to visit so in-depth before. For instance, we recently added Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to the preservation program, and we've spent the last half a year polishing this game. I think it's one of the longest projects for the preservation programme, so we're super proud of that. But without this extra support, we wouldn't be able to commit this many work hours to those games.

So it really helps us. We're also really trying to engage the community. I think it was for Thief - we had support from a developer who reached out to us saying, "Hey, I did this for this game, and I've heard you want to add this to the programme. Maybe I can help you." Huge kudos to that guy.

It's also to do with community as well. For our patrons, we're doing those preservation programme votes. So we're asking them; we're giving them a set of games that we've at least partially researched, so we know what's up, and we're asking them which one of those games they would like to see the most in the programme. So this helps us prioritise things. It's not just a bunch of us sitting in the office making decisions, but also people - actual gamers telling us.

We're gamers as well, but the community telling us that certain games should be looked at is very valuable to us. It's a lot of work, not only for us, but a lot of talking to the community, listening to the community, working with the community, but it's all towards the common goal of game preservation.

What's the game that surprised you and the team the most that you've got to work on in this preservation programme?

Zuzanna: So it was a year ago, in March I think, we decided to work on Silent Hill 4: The Room, and it turned out one of our engineers had found out that there are scenes, called hauntings. But some hauntings in Silent Hill 4 were never available on PC, and we never knew why. We did have a few theories. For example, we thought that as the game was on a disc for PC, perhaps there was just not enough storage to fit it in, so they were cutting some content. Or, maybe it was just some bug that never got fixed.

So our engineers managed to unlock those scenes, and now PC players can have the actual full Silent Hill 4 experience just like on consoles. It was amazing.

Regarding Tomb Raider, we've got the remasters and the reimagining of the original game coming soon. But there is Xbox-exclusive DLC in Underworld that's still locked to the console. Is there a time when GOG could work with Crystal Dynamics to get those levels on PC for preservation?

Zuzanna: You know, with porting, preservation covers so many topics. We look into so many tools: porting tools, emulation tools, everything. So I want to say that there's always a possibility, because if we don't believe it, then what are we doing here?

I would say there's always a possibility. Once we get to something, we always have this mindset: a game's quality over the quantity of games added to the program. Because once we get to work on the game, we really want to get into it. And we always do. There are several steps. There's a research phase: we're testing the game, we're checking it out.

[There's] the timing of the whole research, with the full analysis of everything. And after that, our technical engineers and technical producers are getting into the fixing phase. Sometimes it requires working with emulators. Sometimes it requires new tools. And there's a whole variety of those things. So for now it's hard to say what working with those games would be like, since I don't think we've gotten around to them yet.

But who knows? As I said, if we don't believe this will happen one day, then we don't really have much to work on, because this is the original full experience and the best version that you can get anywhere. Being on GOG is always our ultimate goal.

Game decompilations have been a big thing in 2026. There have been unofficial Xbox ports, Nintendo ports, and more. It seems like this could fall into GOG's preservation program. What are your thoughts on decomps, and could it work for GOG in some way?

Zuzanna: It's amazing. Even if we can't bring some things to GOG just yet, either because of the tools, licences, legal stuff, or because, unfortunately, we're a business, so we always have to be in contracts, legal business stuff. So sometimes these things stand in the way; for example, when it comes to open-source tools that we can't quite use.

So yeah, we're all just regular people, regular gamers, and we all just love this stuff and love to see it all happening. Even if, business-wise, as a company, we can't reach something just yet, like console ports, even though, as you said, it's a natural next step for us. So if it's more complicated for business reasons, it's still something that we're super excited to see and explore.

So far, we've seen Dino Crisis, Resident Evil, and Diablo be made available on GOG. What's it been like working with the IP holders? Also, what was it like to talk to Capcom and ask to have the original Resident Evil games on modern platforms?

Zuzanna: So some things of course I can't go into details about, but generally speaking, working with Capcom and with other companies like Square Enix lately, they have been such wonderful partners. Capcom has been incredible throughout this whole process of releasing those games. They were really, really supportive and just as excited as us.

Sometimes we pursue some games for a long time before we release them. For others, every few months we're just pinging this one publisher, or pinging this one business contact. And sometimes it just takes the right person at the right time to get those things done.

We can be knocking on all doors and all windows of some publishers, but sometimes all it takes is this one point of contact who actually used to love these games and would love to bring them back, and then it just clicks. Some of our releases have been a result of such constant work and persistence.

Having managed to release the original Resident Evil trilogy, Capcom has been wonderful with us, and we're excited to find more publishers like Capcom in the future.

GOG Galaxy on Linux and Mac?

A big part of preservation is making sure the games are playable on as many systems as possible. With the rise of PC gaming handhelds, Linux devices, and Apple Macs becoming capable of running more modern games at great framerates, is there a future where we could be seeing GOG Galaxy support the Mac, Linux, and Valve's Steam hardware?

Zuzanna: Linux in particular is something that we're very actively looking into. Under all our social media posts and videos, there's always at least one comment that's like, "GOG Galaxy on Linux will win." So it's not like we don't see it, we see it very well. And the Linux community is also very passionate about GOG. They use Galaxy through the Heroic launcher on Steam Deck as well, so this is something that people are already doing on their own.

Just a few weeks ago, GamingOnLinux was messaging me and asking me, "Hey, how's that going?" So yeah, this is something that we are very actively looking into: prototyping, researching, seeing how this could be done. Earlier this year we had a job opening for an engineer, and now we have a wonderful person on board who has a massive amount of knowledge regarding apps on Linux, and so they're committing part of their time to this research and possible development.

So of course we don't have any strong yes or no; we don't have any timelines yet; we're not ready for any announcements yet, but this is a super important topic for us and something we really want to pursue, definitely.

A Silent Hope

We've recently seen Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time be made available on GOG, which is fantastic. Is there another game that you would love to see on the preservation programme?

Zuzanna: Bringing back Silent Hill 1. I love the Silent Hill franchise; I absolutely love it. Silent Hill 4: The Room has been super exciting to bring back. I love the Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team; such a magnificent job in preserving the feeling of the original Silent Hill. So yeah, Silent Hill 1 is my top hope.

But also, a less obvious choice - Zoo Tycoon 2 - it's my favourite childhood game. I've spent so much time in this game. I've been cleaning up some stuff with my sister recently, and we opened this box. There was a bunch of DVDs, some movies, some old games, and I pulled out Zoo Tycoon 2. And remember the scene in the Ratatouille movie where the guy takes a bite of food, and he gets that nostalgic feeling?

That was me opening the box, because there was a booklet with instructions, and there were notes from little me. It was super emotional, because I think all of us have that moment for some boxed games. But at some point, we put this CD in a box, and we never opened it again. We just put it on the shelf, and for some reason we never reached out for it again. And I was like, when did it happen?

It was really emotional for me, just going through that booklet. It's also such a silly game to get super emotional about, but I absolutely loved it, and I spent so much time playing Zoo Tycoon 2 as a girl. So I would love to look at it again and play it again, play around building a zoo. Definitely.

It's Black, it's White?

What about British PC classics, such as Lionhead's Black & White?

Zuzanna: It's like the top of our wishlist games.

So I imagine, as Microsoft likely has the rights to Black & White, there may be plenty of hoops to jump through to get that on GOG.

Zuzanna: Games like Black & White have very complicated legal situations when it comes to licensing. Sometimes there are so many- not particularly Black & White, but in general, there can be many complicated cases of rights. Sometimes people don't even know they have them because they could be passed down in a family; someone who had them passed away, and the children received them.

We did have situations like this where we weren't able to get hold of the rights because the family members couldn't talk to each other. We've had cases where we hired a private investigator to track down the rights. So it's a lot of this really funky, almost legal detective work.

Those games, holy grails to some, are obviously something that, for gamers like us, we all want to see. Games like that are also part of this constant work, constant revisiting. And our community as well helps us stay motivated by sharing their stories on the Dreamlist, constantly nudging us: "make it happen." And we're like, well, we're trying. So yeah, we definitely really want to see these games. As I said earlier, we have to believe that one day it will happen, because otherwise all our actions won't make any sense.

A boxed media comeback?

One thing to mention as well is that there hasn't been an AI focus from what I've seen around Gamescom, which is great to see. Has AI been used at GOG for perhaps some of the projects?

Zuzanna: Not used in our preservation efforts. Perhaps AI upscaling, but I don't think we use it that much. Generally, in the work around games, we don't really use AI.

Another part of preservation is physical game media. We've already seen the news about Sony getting rid of physical media from 2028. But could GOG be considering looking into boxed media for its library - it seems like the next natural step.

Note: GOG announced on September 8 that they would begin to offer Printable Big Boxes of select games.

Zuzanna: It does. You've not been the first, likely not the last person to ask this. And it's funny, because all the things that people ask about are the things that are part of constant conversations for us. It does feel natural for GOG to be doing this. But it's very complicated in terms of the distribution methods.

We are an e-commerce platform, so we don't yet have the means to do things like that, but we're definitely exploring options. It's not something that we've closed ourselves off to. Because both our community and we at GOG are collectors. We love to see those games preserved, and we love to relive those memories. We have so much stuff in our office, but we have lots of those big boxed games too.

So we're definitely looking into how GOG could contribute to physical media that's so important for game preservation, but also for collecting. There's this one guy who has a website called Big Box Collection; he does 3D scans of all these boxes, and you can view them on the website. So we were also thinking about something similar. It's something that could be easier for us to distribute via PDF online, so customers could print it out and form a box out of it. So it does feel natural for us to keep pursuing this.

Finally, what's been your highlight working with this initiative? What's been your personal highlight to see?

Zuzanna: There are a few. I mentioned that I found an old box of Zoo Tycoon 2, and in Poland, Zoo Tycoon 2, localised to Polish, was published by CD Projekt, back then when they were still doing localised publishing for Poland. At the end of the manual, there was a phone line you could call if you had any technical issues. But there was also a line saying that if you want to pass on anything, or if you have any technical issues, you can send a letter to them in Warsaw. That's now where our office is, where I spend almost every day of my life nowadays, and it was a very big-circle moment for me. I just thought, "Holy shit, that's so cool."

Apart from that, I recently really loved working with Square Enix on bringing their games to GOG, such as the Final Fantasy games - they're such lovely people. So bringing those JRPG gems to GOG has been such a pleasure. Also bringing back Alpha Protocol, as I learnt it's something of an underdog story: on release, it wasn't reviewed massively well. But when we re-released it, everyone was like, "Finally!"

I could go on. But in the first year of the GOG preservation program, I've been working on the lineup for it, such as Silent Hill 4, and it's been incredible. It's been so much fun to research those games, see what's working, and even what's not. It's been a lot of fun.

My thanks to Zuzanna for chatting to me.