Nightdive Studios has revealed a new comparison video for the cinematics in its upcoming enhanced edition of the Blade Runner adventure game. Released in 1997 and developed by famed Command and Conquer developers Westwood Studios, the Blade Runner game was a well-received licensed title that expanded on the movie’s plotline with a side story. Players took control of Ray McCoy, a detective charged with hunting down replicants. Over the course of his story, he runs into film characters voiced by their original actors as well as locations taken straight from the film.
For many years following its release, Blade Runner has been caught in a legal entanglement that prevented its upload onto digital services for quite some time. The publisher, Virgin Interactive, ceased to exist in 2003, selling its intellectual properties to Titus, which was later acquired by Interplay Entertainment. Westwood would be acquired by EA the year after Blade Runner released, and the company was shuttered five years afterward. Late last year, after much wrangling, GOG managed to secure a release of the PC game on its storefront, and that rights clearance led to Nightdive Studios working on an Enhanced Edition of the game.
As part of the Realms Deep digital event this past weekend, Nightdive showed off a YouTube trailer that placed new cinematics from Blade Runner‘s enhanced edition right next to the original game’s cutscenes. The changes don’t alter the art style of the game, as Nightdive is interested in preserving the original intent of the games it remasters. Instead, a smoothing effect is applied throughout the cinematics.
Fans in the chat during the conference and others around the web have stated a distaste for the new look. In the replies for the trailer’s tweet on Nightdive’s official page, there are just as many people who want to know if original scenes are available as those excited about the new version. The game will be hitting consoles for the first time with this release, so players on Xbox, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch may only have the one option.
Whether playing with the original graphics or the upcoming rerelease, this classic third-person point and click adventure truly captures the feel of the original Blade Runner. In order to try to create something cinematic in 1997, Westwood opted for 3D character models and pre-rendered backgrounds, a combination that hasn’t aged gracefully. In other areas, the game was ahead of its time. Characters in the world of Blade Runner were not props, but rather they performed actions in real-time that affected Ray McCoy’s ongoing investigation. Most other games of its ilk were still presenting straightforward narratives at the time, and Westwood isn’t too far off from this, but the legendary studio showed its ingenuity with these mechanics.
