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After a brief stint on GOG, the original versions of Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3 have arrived on Steam. These are the classic games that defined the survival horror genre, so to see them make their way to Steam was wonderful. It’s a great way to experience them, and I will never complain about preserving older games on modern hardware.

Resident Evil 1 Registry Error

However, some of the festivities were cut short when the games could not launch on the Steam Deck. Every time I tried to run Resident Evil 1 or 2, I would be met with a launcher that would have a registry error when trying to start the game. This makes the game completely unplayable, no matter what Proton version you use. Luckily, after some investigating and testing, there is a way to fix this.

You can follow our guide on exactly how to do it, but it will require a couple of extra tools like Proton GE and Protontricks, and manually adding to the registry to make sure that error doesn’t pop up again.

ResidentEvil2OGSteamDeck

Once that’s done, the game should work just fine, but they still may not be the best way to play. Even with these fixes, Resident Evil 1’s cutscenes will be extremely small, with some visuals that are very off, and some of the key bindings feel awkward. On top of that, the steam releases are coupled with Capcom’s Enigma DRM, which does make the game drain a little bit more than it should for a title as old as this. The controls are also off for Resident Evil 3, and work best with a community configuration. This is the one I used:

Screenshot 2 4 2026 35133 www.steaminputdb.com

Even still, I’m happy that the games did release on Steam eventually. Whether there are better versions from the Steam or GOG versions is up for debate, and both have their pros and cons. The Steam version is easier to set up on the Deck, but it has the DRM, while the GOG version takes extra steps without any DRM. Thankfully, both do work on the Steam Deck, so we can choose which one we would prefer using.

ResidentEvil1OGSteamDeck

Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3 are all on sale for $4.99 at 50% off on Steam until April 15th.

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Noah Kupetsky
A lover of gaming since 4, Noah has grown up with a love and passion for the industry. From there, he started to travel a lot and develop a joy for handheld and PC gaming. When the Steam Deck released, it just all clicked.
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