Despite running into some considerable set-backs shortly after its initial announcement, leading to an indefinite delay, developer Nightdive Studios’ highly anticipated remaster of Westwood Studio’s classic Blade Runner point-and-click adventure is finally complete, and will be launching for Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC, tomorrow, 23rd June.
The Blade Runner game, for those unfamiliar, released in 1997, and, unlike the vast majority of licensed adaptations, was an extraordinary piece of work, not only managing to perfectly capture the neon-streaked dystopian atmosphere of the movie in a story that ran parallel to its action, but doing so in ways both wildly ambitious and legitimately groundbreaking.
Although Blade Runner takes its cue from narrative-driven point-and-click games, it immediately distinguishes itself from its genre peers by sending players, in the role of Blade Runner Ray McCoy, on a heavily randomised adventure. The goal remains the same each play-through, in that players must use their investigatory skills to identify and hunt down a number of replicants, but exactly which characters are replicants is determined at the start of a new game, subtly changing their behaviour as the story unfolds.
Furthermore, instead of following a scripted route through the story, NPCs move around in relative real-time based on their assigned objectives. Throw in the likes of branching narrative pathways and different endings, and Blade Runner’s world feels impressively alive.
It is, in short, a genuine classic, but inevitably also a game that’s showing its age from a technical perspective, despite its many strengths. Enter restoration specialist Nightdive Studios – which has previously remastered the likes System Shock and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter – and its announcement of a hugely welcome remaster for the game back in March 2020.