Everyone’s familiar with Blade Runner: the mythical 1982 film which marked an era due to its visual style and intriguing sci-fi setting, characters and plot.
And you would expect give the film’s legendary status, that there would be a plethora of Blade Runner games available in the market… The truth is, though, that only two Blade Runner games have seen the light of day.
One of these is an action game released for the old Commodore 64 computer, and is best forgotten.
The other, a “point and click” adventure game by Westwood Studios which came out in 1997, is actually pretty good. It had impressive 3D graphics for the time, lovely cutscenes which told a good story set in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner universe, and interesting real-time gameplay, which meant you could miss certain in-game events depending on which path you took through the game, which did have multiple endings.
The thing is, Westwood’s 90’s game is quite dated by today’s standards… It got a remaster last year, which sadly did not do the game justice and turned out to be one of the worst video game releases of 2022.
But still, it’s likely that Blade Runner fans were ecstatic when Annapurna Interactive announced that it is working on a new Blade Runner game, but one which doesn’t have a release date (or even a release year) attached to it yet.
Annapurna’s game is set between the events of the original movie and Denis Villeneuve Blade Runner 2049 movie, and has also gotten a moody announcement trailer too (see below).
It’s not known whether the game’s protagonist will be Deckard, the protagonist of the first film, although the Blade Runner seen in the trailer definitely doesn’t look like Harrison Ford (and it may be too much of an expense to feature the actor’s likeness in the game obviously).
The game’s lead could very well be Ray McCoy (the player character in Westwood’s game), or another character altogether, but it’s worth pointing out that this doesn’t give the impression of being a cutting-edge AAA game either visually or sonically judging by this trailer. More like an indie production if you ask me.
Regarding the setting, the game takes place after a cataclysmic event known as “the Blackout”.
Also, according to the game’s marketing blurb the game asks the question “what does a Blade Runner do when there are no Replicants left to hunt?”. It would be a pity, though, if the game failed to answer the question, or that the investigative work seen in the trailer turned out to be a boring affair. After all, hunting replicants is wat makes a Blade Runner’s job exciting (or so I guess) – so this might be somewhat devoid of action without this element being present in the game.
Will Annapurna’s upcoming Blade Runner game be better than Westwood Studios’ 90’s game?
Nonetheless, sifting through Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth’s post-apocalyptic world could be fun, like “being someone else … in places that no longer exist” as the game’s protagonist says in the trailer.
Video game company Annapurna Interactive has published games like Journey and Telling Lies, but this is its first big in-house project, and one Blade Runner and video game fans surely are hoping will turn out great. It will be the first Blade Runner game to come out in more than 25 years, so it would be a great thing if this ends up being as great as people are hoping it will be when it releases at a future date.