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''Blade Runner'' is a
point-and-click adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...
developed by
Westwood Studios Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westw ...
and published by
Virgin Interactive Virgin Interactive Entertainment (later renamed Avalon Interactive) was the video game publishing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group. It developed and published games for major platforms and employed developers, including Westwo ...
for Microsoft Windows, released on November 14, 1997. The game is not a direct adaptation of the 1982 Ridley Scott film ''
Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick' ...
'' but is instead a "
sidequel In media, a spin-off (or spinoff) is a radio program, television program, film, video game or any narrative work, derived from already existing works that focus on more details and different aspects from the original work (e.g. particular topics, ...
", telling an original story, which runs parallel to the film's plot, occasionally intersecting with it. Set in 2019
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
, the game tells the story of Ray McCoy, an elite detective charged with hunting down a group of dangerous
replicant A replicant is a fictional bioengineered humanoid featured in the 1982 film ''Blade Runner'' and the 2017 sequel ''Blade Runner 2049'' which is physically indistinguishable from an adult human and often possesses superhuman strength and intellig ...
s (bioengineered
androids An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material. Historically, androids were completely within the domain of science fiction and frequently seen in film and television, but advances in robot techno ...
designed to look and act like humans). Although several of the film's characters appear in the game, with some of the original actors returning to
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
them, the film's protagonist,
Rick Deckard Rick Deckard is a fictional character and the protagonist of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?''. Harrison Ford portrayed the character in the 1982 film adaptation, ''Blade Runner'', and reprised his role in ...
, does not appear in a speaking role. Instead, he is referred to on multiple occasions, is seen several times, and his activities as depicted in the film are mentioned. Other parallels with the film include the reproduction of several prominent locations, as well as scenes and dialogue closely modelled on the original. The game also features extracts from the film's soundtrack. ''Blade Runner'' was advertised as a "
real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...
3D adventure game", since it was one of the first adventure games to use both 3D character rendering and a game world which progressed in
real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...
(as opposed to waiting for the player's actions). Unlike many games of its time, which used
polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two to ...
-based renderers exploiting 3D accelerators, Westwood opted for their own
software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...
-based renderer using
voxel In 3D computer graphics, a voxel represents a value on a regular grid in three-dimensional space. As with pixels in a 2D bitmap, voxels themselves do not typically have their position (i.e. coordinates) explicitly encoded with their values. I ...
technology. The game received generally positive reviews and was a commercial success, selling over one million units worldwide. It went on to win the
Interactive Achievement Award The D.I.C.E. Awards (formerly the Interactive Achievement Awards) is an award show in the video game industry started in 1998 and commonly referred to in the industry as the "video games Oscar". The awards are arranged by the Academy of Intera ...
for "Computer Adventure Game of the Year" and was nominated for "Best Adventure Game" by ''
PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...
''. Virgin Interactive wanted Westwood to make a sequel, but it was thought the cost of production would make the game commercially unviable and the idea was scrapped. For many years, it remained trapped in legal and intellectual property entanglement, preventing a re-release on digital storefronts, until it finally arrived on GOG.com in December 2019.
Nightdive Studios Night Dive Studios, Inc. (doing business as Nightdive Studios) is an American video game developer based in Vancouver, Washington. The company was founded in November 2012 by Stephen and Alix Kick, former video game artists for Sony Online Ent ...
and
Alcon Entertainment Alcon Entertainment, LLC is an American film production company, founded in 1997 by film producers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove. Since its establishment, Alcon Entertainment has developed and financed films that are ultimately distribut ...
released an ''Enhanced Edition'' of the game on Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and
Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
on June 23, 2022.


Gameplay

''Blade Runner'' is a
point-and-click adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...
played from a
third-person perspective Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...
, in which the game world is navigated, explored, and manipulated using the mouse. The pointer has four different styles depending on the given situation; a standard grey pointer is used to move McCoy by clicking on any location, and scan the screen for elements with which to interact; an animated green pointer indicates McCoy can interact with an object or begin a conversation with an NPC; an animated blue pointer indicates the screen can be changed and a new area accessed (usually appears at the sides of the screen or in doorways); an animated red target becomes available only in combat mode and indicates McCoy can fire (if the target is grey, it means McCoy cannot fire). ''Blade Runners'' main focus is detective work rather than
puzzles A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle ...
or combat, and the majority of
gameplay Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and pl ...
consists of searching for evidence, questioning suspects and analyzing clues. Occasionally, the player must solve compulsory puzzles, and often, to progress the story, certain clues must be located. Clues are found by searching
crime scene A crime scene is any location that may be associated with a committed crime. Crime scenes contain physical evidence that is pertinent to a criminal investigation. This evidence is collected by crime scene investigators (CSI) and law enforcemen ...
s, and come in the form of items, photographs, interviews, or unusual markings. When analyzing photographs, the player must use the ESPER system, a high-density computer with a powerful three-dimensional resolution capacity which allows for the enhancement of photos and enables the player to find details within the picture. Combat is occasionally available in the game, but is rarely compulsory. The only weapon available to the player is McCoy's standard issue police pistol, which may be loaded with various types of ammunition. Another important investigative tool at the player's disposal is the
Voight-Kampff ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick' ...
machine, which tests people to determine if they are
replicant A replicant is a fictional bioengineered humanoid featured in the 1982 film ''Blade Runner'' and the 2017 sequel ''Blade Runner 2049'' which is physically indistinguishable from an adult human and often possesses superhuman strength and intellig ...
s. Usually, Voight-Kampff tests are automatically triggered at certain predetermined points in the game, although on occasion, the player has the option of administering a test. The test depicts a close-up of the subject's eye, and features three needles. The further the top needle moves to the right, the more likely the subject is a replicant; the further the bottom needle moves to the right, the more likely they are human. The third needle is on a sweeping axis and measures the intensity of the questions (for every question the player can choose low, medium or high intensity), and the pressure felt by the subject. If the player pushes the subject too far, by asking too many high intensity questions, the test will end before a definite result can be obtained. If the player determines with certainty whether a subject is or is not a replicant, the test ends automatically. The player must then decide what course of action to take, with the decision influencing the rest of the storyline; for example, if a subject tests positive as a replicant, the player can kill them, attempt to arrest them, or let them go. Which characters are replicants is randomized each time a new game is started. Aside from choosing how to react to Voight-Kampff results, the player must also decide how McCoy conducts himself in other areas of the game, such as whether to
interrogate Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful infor ...
an NPC or simply talk to them and how aggressive to be in his questioning. The player can choose from one of five settings regarding McCoy's demeanor during conversations: "Polite", "Normal", "Surly", "Erratic" (the game randomly picks one of the first three options at different points of the conversation), and "User Choice". If the fifth option is selected, conversations with NPCs will present the player with menus from which they can choose their questions, rather than the game automatically selecting questions. Each choice will affect the storyline differently, with the player's cumulative decisions leading to one of the game's thirteen different endings. All clues, conversation histories, and documents are stored in McCoy's "Knowledge Integration Assistant" (KIA), where they are automatically organized for easy access. The KIA has three main sections. The "Crime Scene Panel" lists the various crime scenes, along with all known suspects and all related clues. The "Suspect Panel" displays all available information about the suspects for the various crimes. It includes a photo of the suspect (if the player has found one), a list of crimes to which they are connected, and a list of clues which tie them to a specific crime. Suspect clues are arranged into four categories; "Whereabouts" (known places the suspect has visited, and suggestions as to their current location), " MO" (information on the suspect's previous actions, and suggestions as to their possible future actions), "Replicant" (any evidence suggesting the suspect may be a replicant) and "Non-replicant" (any evidence suggesting the suspect may be a human). The "Clue Panel" is a master list of all clues, but also contains clues which have not been linked to a specific crime or suspect as of yet, and, as such, are not available in either of the other two sections. The KIA also keeps track of McCoy's money and ammunition. The game runs in nonlinear "real time", meaning that as McCoy investigates and gathers clues, the NPC characters are doing the same, completing their own objectives and performing random actions elsewhere in the game world. A good example of this is found in the computer mainframe, which is accessible from the police headquarters. When the player uploads their KIA data into the mainframe, any evidence collected by other Blade Runners is automatically downloaded into the player's KIA. This tends to be random, with different pieces of evidence discovered by different Blade Runners becoming available at different times of the game.


Story


Main characters

* Ray McCoy (voiced by Mark Benninghofen): the game's protagonist and a rookie Blade Runner. McCoy shares his apartment with his pet dog, Maggie. * Crystal Steele (
Lisa Edelstein Lisa or LISA may refer to: People People with the mononym * Lisa Lisa (born 1967), American actress and lead singer of the Cult Jam * Lisa (Japanese musician, born 1974), stylized "LISA", Japanese singer and producer * Lisa Komine (born 1978), J ...
): one of the best Blade Runners on the job and an expert in undercover work. She hates replicants, believing they should be exterminated. She is somewhat condescending towards McCoy early in the game but grows to respect him as the story progresses. *
Gaff Gaff may refer to: Ankle-worn devices * Spurs in variations of cockfighting * Climbing spikes used to ascend wood poles, such as utility poles Arts and entertainment * A character in the ''Blade Runner'' film franchise * Penny gaff, a 19th- ...
(Javier Grajeda as Victor Gardell): a veteran Blade Runner who often offers McCoy advice * Lieutenant Edison Guzza (
Jeff Garlin Jeffrey Garlin (born June 5, 1962) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known for playing Murray Goldberg, patriarch of the eponymous family in the ABC sitcom '' The Goldbergs'', and Jeff Greene on the HBO sitcom ''Curb Your ...
): temporarily placed in charge of the Blade Runner unit while the previous commander, Captain Bryant, is on sick leave. * Clovis (
Mark Rolston Mark Rolston (born December 7, 1956) is an American character actor, known for his supporting roles in popular films such as ''Aliens'', '' Lethal Weapon 2'', '' The Shawshank Redemption'', ''The Departed'' and the '' Saw'' film series, as well a ...
): the leader of a group of renegade replicants. Highly intelligent and eloquent, he is also extremely ruthless, unpredictable and, at times, capable of extreme acts of aggression. * Lucy Devlin (
Pauley Perrette Pauley Perrette (born March 27, 1969) is an American retired actress and singer. She played Abby Sciuto in the television series '' NCIS'' from 2003 to 2018. Early life Perrette was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised throughout the so ...
): a fourteen-year-old girl who works at the pet store attacked by the replicants in the opening scene


Supporting characters

* Dektora (
Signy Coleman Signy Coleman (born July 4, 1960), sometimes credited as Signey Coleman, is an American actress. Background Coleman was born in Ross, California, on July 4, 1960. She grew up in Bolinas, California, and attended Tamalpais High School in Mill V ...
): an exotic dancer. * Sadik (Alexander Mervin): a member of Clovis' gang. * Howie Lee (Toru Nagai): the owner of a restaurant in Chinatown. * Zuben (
Gerald Okamura Gerald Okamura (born 1940) is an American martial artist and stuntman. Career Okamura began his martial arts with judo in 1953. He has practiced kendo, aikido, taekwondo, and he is currently a 5th degree black belt in Kung Fu San Soo (his s ...
): a replicant who works as a chef at Howie Lee's Restaurant in Chinatown. * Luther and Lance (Jason Cottle): identical twin replicant brothers who are former Tyrell Corporation employees. * Gordo Frizz (Bruno Oliver): a stand-up comedian. * Runciter ( Warren Burton): the owner of the pet store attacked by the game's replicants. * Izo (
Timothy Dang Timothy Dang is an American actor and theatre director originally from Hawaii of Asian origin. He served as the artistic director at the Asian American theatre company, East West Players (EWP), in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California until 20 ...
): a weapons dealer who supplies automatic firearms to Clovis' gang. * Bullet Bob (
Vincent Schiavelli Vincent Andrew Schiavelli (; November 11, 1948 – December 26, 2005) was an American character actor noted for his work on stage, screen, and television. Described as an "instantly recognizable sad-faced actor", he was diagnosed with Marfan s ...
): a World War III veteran who runs a gun shop near Animoid Row. Original cast members from the 1982 film who make
cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...
s in the game are
Sean Young Mary Sean Young (born November 20, 1959) is an American actress. She is particularly known for working in sci-fi films, although she has performed roles in a variety of genres. Young's early roles include the independent romance '' Jane Aust ...
as
Rachael Rachel ( he, רָחֵל, Modern: Raḥel, Tiberian: Rāḫēl, Rāḥēl), meaning " ewe", is a feminine given name of Hebrew origin, popularized by the biblical figure Rachel, the wife of Israelite patriarch Jacob. Ashkenazi Jewish matronymic ...
,
Brion James Brion Howard James (February 20, 1945 – August 7, 1999) was an American character actor. He portrayed Leon Kowalski in ''Blade Runner'' and appeared in ''Southern Comfort'', ''48 Hrs.'', '' Another 48 Hrs.'', '' Silverado'', '' Tango & Cash'', ...
as
Leon Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again f ...
, James Hong as Hannibal Chew,
Joe Turkel Joseph Turkel (July 15, 1927 – June 27, 2022) was an American character actor who starred in film and television during the Golden Age Era in the 1950s and 1960s. He is known for his roles in Stanley Kubrick's films '' The Killing'', ''Paths ...
as Dr. Eldon Tyrell, and
William Sanderson William Sanderson (born January 10, 1944) is an American retired actor. He played J. F. Sebastian in the feature film ''Blade Runner'' (1982), and had regular roles on several television series such as Larry on ''Newhart'' (1982–1990), E. B ...
as J.F. Sebastian.


Plot

The game begins shortly after the beginning of the film, with McCoy tasked with tracking down a group of replicants who are suspected of murdering animals—a crime nearly as heinous as murdering humans since most animal species are extinct and real specimens are exceedingly rare. As McCoy's investigation progresses, he is framed for the murder of a civilian by the corrupt Lieutenant Guzza, who has been assisting the replicants in an effort to prevent them from revealing his activities. Forced into hiding, McCoy explores the underbelly of LA and makes contact with the replicant twins Luther and Lance, former genetic designers for the Tyrell Corporation who are now working to extend their own lifespans as well as those of all other replicants. From them, McCoy receives a detailed report containing evidence of Guzza's corruption. Using this information, he blackmails Guzza and forces him to set his falsified record straight. They meet in the city sewers for the exchange, where Guzza is wounded by replicant gunfire. At this point, the player can either run away or kill Guzza. The game features thirteen different endings, which are influenced by the player's cumulative actions and decisions throughout the story. The endings are variations on three major themes: * McCoy is human and hunts down the replicants either alone or with Crystal. * McCoy is a replicant himself and sides with the other replicants. * McCoy's status remains ambiguous and he sides with neither the replicants nor the police, instead leaving the city—either alone, with Dektora, or with Lucy.


Development


Origins

The initial idea for a video game adaptation of ''
Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick' ...
'' came from The Blade Runner Partnership (composed of
Bud Yorkin Alan David "Bud" Yorkin (February 22, 1926 – August 18, 2015) was an American film and television producer, director, screenwriter, and actor. Biography Yorkin was born in Washington, Pennsylvania, to Jewish parents. He earned a deg ...
and
Jerry Perenchio Andrew Jerrold Perenchio (December 20, 1930 – May 23, 2017) was an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He was at one time the chairman and chief executive officer of Univision. Early life Perenchio was the grandson of Italian ...
of
Tandem Productions Tandem Productions, Inc. (a.k.a. Tandem Enterprises, Inc.) was a film and television production company that was founded in 1958 by television director Bud Yorkin and television writer/producer Norman Lear. History Tandem Productions In the ...
). They originally approached
Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...
, Sierra and
Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...
, before
Virgin Interactive Virgin Interactive Entertainment (later renamed Avalon Interactive) was the video game publishing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group. It developed and published games for major platforms and employed developers, including Westwo ...
agreed to take the project on. However, the rights to the film were spread out over several entities, each of whom owned a different aspect, making production of the game complex from a
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
perspective;
The Ladd Company The Ladd Company was an American film production company founded by Alan Ladd Jr., Jay Kanter, and Gareth Wigan in 1979. In 1979, the three founders were executives with 20th Century Fox; Ladd was the president. They announced their intention ...
owned North American distribution rights to the film;
Run Run Shaw Sir Run Run Shaw (19 November 1907 – 7 January 2014), also known as Shao Yifu and Siu Yat-fu, was a Hong Kong entertainment mogul and philanthropist. He was one of the most influential figures in the Asian entertainment industry. He founde ...
owned international distribution rights; and The Blade Runner Partnership owned all ancillary rights, and were the bond guarantors, who had taken control of the film when it went over-budget and over-schedule towards the end of production. As a result, sorting out the rights took several years before Virgin were in a position to actually begin development. They ultimately hired
Westwood Studios Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westw ...
to work on the game, but even with the rights secured, and the game in pre-production, there were still legal problems. As
Louis Castle Louis Castle is an American video games designer. He is known for co-founding Westwood Studios, designing the PC game ''Blade Runner'', and collaborating with Steven Spielberg on the '' Boom Blox'' and ''Boom Blox Bash Party'' video games for th ...
, the game's executive producer, art director and technical director, explains However, Castle's unique idea for the game somewhat side-stepped the potential legal problems. He didn't want to adapt the film; he wanted to make an original game set within the film's ''milieu''. This would mean the game would not have to borrow as heavily from the film as it would were it a straight adaptation, hence avoiding the potential legal problems down the road. Virgin loved Castle's idea, and asked him to make a pitch to Bud Yorkin. Castle built a demo for the pitch, but rather than using footage from the film, he and his team created a rough opening
cutscene A cutscene or event scene (sometimes in-game cinematic or in-game movie) is a sequence in a video game that is not interactive, interrupting the gameplay. Such scenes are used to show conversations between characters, set the mood, reward th ...
based on the film's aesthetic style, but without recreating any exact scenes. According to Castle, going into the pitch, Yorkin was concerned about how much footage from the film would be needed for the game, but when he saw the demo, he was thrilled, and asked Castle if the whole game could be made in a similar manner. From that point forward, the development team had one overriding mandate; every scene in the game would be generated from scratch in 3D; no footage from the film would be used. Although both footage and the film's soundtrack were off-limits, the designers were allowed to re-create the likenesses of the actors who had appeared in the film. Westwood never intended for
Rick Deckard Rick Deckard is a fictional character and the protagonist of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?''. Harrison Ford portrayed the character in the 1982 film adaptation, ''Blade Runner'', and reprised his role in ...
to be a major character in the game, but they did attempt to contact Harrison Ford with the intention of asking him to make a
cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...
. However, they never received a response. This didn't surprise them, as Ford had had a negative experience working on the film and, at the time, even refused to talk about it in interviews. According to Castle, Ford was also against the concept of video games based on films in general. The designers were also unable to get any input from Ridley Scott, the film's director, as he too had had a bad experience on the film, and had fallen out with Yorkin and Perenchio when they took over production. He was uninterested in participating in the game. One major contributor to the film who did work with the developers, however, was Syd Mead, whose concept art formed the basis for ''Blade Runner''s aesthetic. Mead sent the team extracts from his original ''Blade Runner'' artwork. However, they quickly noticed a disparity – Mead's art didn't correlate with the finished film; whilst his artwork tended to be highly stylized and polished, the film had a much grittier and "lived-in" texture. The team contacted one of the film's set builders, who explained that had Mead's artwork been used as it was presented, the film would have cost too much, so production designer Lawrence G. Paull and art director
David Snyder David L. Snyder (born September 22, 1944) is an American film and television production designer. He has worked as an art director, producer, and assistant director on films including ''Blade Runner'', '' Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey'', ''The Whole ...
had decided to create "less perfect" versions of Mead's designs; they took Mead's concepts and remoulded them. Inspired by this, Castle issued a similar directive to his design team; nothing in the game was to be created from scratch, everything had to come from either the film or Mead's art.


Story

From the beginning, Westwood had no interest in doing a straight adaptation of the film as either a
shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charac ...
or traditional point-and-click adventure game. As a result, the team decided to write a new story set within the fictional ''milieu'' of the film – a story in which players would play not as Rick Deckard, but as a new character, Ray McCoy. This allowed fans of the film the experience of seeing the sights and sounds of the movie, but without knowing where the story is heading. The writers decided the plot of the game would begin shortly after the opening of the film, with Deckard having already been assigned to track down
Roy Batty ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, which stars Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. Written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, the film is an adaptation of ...
and the other
replicant A replicant is a fictional bioengineered humanoid featured in the 1982 film ''Blade Runner'' and the 2017 sequel ''Blade Runner 2049'' which is physically indistinguishable from an adult human and often possesses superhuman strength and intellig ...
s. The game's plot was imagined in such a way that the player would occasionally hear about Deckard, but would never meet him. For example, when visiting the Tyrell building,
Rachael Rachel ( he, רָחֵל, Modern: Raḥel, Tiberian: Rāḫēl, Rāḥēl), meaning " ewe", is a feminine given name of Hebrew origin, popularized by the biblical figure Rachel, the wife of Israelite patriarch Jacob. Ashkenazi Jewish matronymic ...
mentions that she has already spoken to another Blade Runner, and Tyrell tells McCoy, "as I explained to Mr. Deckard earlier, I've given the Nexus 6 a past." Another example is a photograph taken in Animoid Row, which shows Deckard in the background, and prompts McCoy to exclaim "He looks familiar." Additionally, while searching
Leon Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again f ...
's room in the Yukon hotel, McCoy discovers Det. Holden's badge, and Lt. Guzza questions how Deckard missed it, going on to say, "Deckard, he feels too much, ya' know?" The developers were also keen to include locations from the film, such as the
Bradbury Building The Bradbury Building is an architectural landmark in downtown Los Angeles, California, United States. Built in 1893, the five-story office building is best known for its extraordinary skylit atrium of access walkways, stairs and elevators, an ...
, the Tyrell Corporation Pyramid, and the L.A.P.D.'s cylindrical skyscraper. They also enlisted many of the actors from the film to make cameos in the game;
Sean Young Mary Sean Young (born November 20, 1959) is an American actress. She is particularly known for working in sci-fi films, although she has performed roles in a variety of genres. Young's early roles include the independent romance '' Jane Aust ...
as Rachael,
Brion James Brion Howard James (February 20, 1945 – August 7, 1999) was an American character actor. He portrayed Leon Kowalski in ''Blade Runner'' and appeared in ''Southern Comfort'', ''48 Hrs.'', '' Another 48 Hrs.'', '' Silverado'', '' Tango & Cash'', ...
as Leon, James Hong as Hannibal Chew,
Joe Turkel Joseph Turkel (July 15, 1927 – June 27, 2022) was an American character actor who starred in film and television during the Golden Age Era in the 1950s and 1960s. He is known for his roles in Stanley Kubrick's films '' The Killing'', ''Paths ...
as Dr. Eldon Tyrell, and
William Sanderson William Sanderson (born January 10, 1944) is an American retired actor. He played J. F. Sebastian in the feature film ''Blade Runner'' (1982), and had regular roles on several television series such as Larry on ''Newhart'' (1982–1990), E. B ...
as J.F. Sebastian. Of paramount importance to the designers was that the story of the film be treated as sacrosanct – nothing the player can do in the game can ever alter, contradict or in any way run contrary to what happens in the film. David Yorkin, Bud's son, and David Leary worked on the game's script, initially writing it as a linear game. However, the designers wanted the game to feature a great deal of random elements, with the idea being that no two playthroughs would be the same, and no walkthrough would be able to cover every possible eventuality or every possible combination of random events. The game presents the player with fifteen suspects, but only two are ''always'' replicants (Clovis and a cook named Zuben). Which of the other thirteen characters is a replicant is randomized every time the player plays the game, and their behavior is different each playthrough based upon whether or not they are human. Due to the random nature of the game, the script swelled to 500 pages, and the quality assurance people had to play through the game 2,500 times to experience every possible variation. Because of how central to the plot randomness is, NPC behavior was not scripted. Instead, each NPC is assigned certain goals to accomplish based upon whether they are a replicant or a human. How they go about accomplishing these goals is handled by the AI system, and can change from game to game, as most of the goals have several possible methods of achievement. The developers likened this aspect of the game to simulation games such as ''
SimCity ''SimCity'' is an open-ended city-building video game series originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, ''SimCity'', was published by Maxis in 1989 and were followed by several sequels and many other spin-off "''Sim ...
'' rather than traditional adventure games such as ''
Myst ''Myst'' is a graphic adventure/puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and initially released for the Macintosh in 1993. In the game, the player's charact ...
''. Castle explains, "those agents are real, goal-oriented artificial intelligences. We don't know what they're going to do, exactly. We've given them behavior, we haven't given them instructions. There's a big difference between behavior-based AI and scripted instructions."


Design

The graphic design of ''Blade Runner'' was extremely ambitious for the available technology of the time. In contrast to many contemporaneous games, the game engine included
pre-rendered Pre-rendering is the process in which video footage is not rendered in real-time by the hardware that is outputting or playing back the video. Instead, the video is a recording of footage that was previously rendered on different equipment (typic ...
backgrounds and 3D characters, but did not require the use of any hardware 3D accelerators. Designers David Leary and James Walls achieved this through a self-developed technology using
voxel In 3D computer graphics, a voxel represents a value on a regular grid in three-dimensional space. As with pixels in a 2D bitmap, voxels themselves do not typically have their position (i.e. coordinates) explicitly encoded with their values. I ...
s (
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...
s with width, height and depth). Castle explains, The use of voxels, however, meant 3D accelerators couldn't be used, as there would be too many polygons for a card to render. Instead, the designers used a fast rectangular rendering routine that rendered a rectangle whenever it had to draw a polygon. Speaking in 2014, Castle said "people ask me all the time "Why didn't you just use 3D?" Well, that's easy to say now we have full rendering pipelines and
shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as ''shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of speci ...
s, but back then you just didn't. You had a few
vertex Vertex, vertices or vertexes may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics and computer science *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines, or edges meet * Vertex (computer graphics), a data structure that describes the positio ...
-shaded polygons and the texel mapping just wasn't accurate on a lot of the cards. Nowadays I'd do it all in 3D." Another reason for not using 3D accelerators was that the game features roughly 140 locations, most of them open to player exploration. Each of these locations featured millions of polygons, well beyond the capabilities of even the most high end graphics cards of the time. The game's environment takes up 60–65% of the CPU bandwidth, primarily because of the moving camera, but also because eight different characters can appear on screen at any one time – a large number for the technology of the time. Because of this, a powerful CPU was required to run the game, since the engine relied on the processor doing all the work in creating the 3D models. However, despite this limitation, the game runs at a minimum of 15
FPS FPS may refer to: Arts and entertainment * "F.P.S." (''Law & Order: Criminal Intent''), an episode of the TV show ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent'' * '' fps magazine'', a defunct magazine about animation * ''The Fabulous Picture Show'', a televi ...
, even on slow systems. The downside to this was that, since processor power at that time was limited, the in-game 3D models tended to look very
pixelated Pixelization (British English, pixelisation) or mosaic processing is any technique used in editing images or video, whereby an image is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a markedly lower resolution. It is primarily used for censorshi ...
, especially up-close and when motionless, due to the low amount of voxels used to display them. However, had the number of voxels been raised to increase the detail on the characters, the game would have become too slow to play, even on advanced CPUs. All character animations in the game are based on motion-captured actors, with the characters moving in the pre-rendered 3D environment. At the time, any game that attempted 1,000 motion-captured sequences was considered cutting edge; ''Blade Runner'' featured 20,000. Speaking in 2014, Castle stated


Music

The rights for the film's original soundtrack could not be secured for the game, so Westwood brought in their in-house composer Frank Klepacki to create new tracks based on
Vangelis Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou ( el, Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου ; 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis ( ; el, Βαγγέλης, links=no ), was a Greek composer and arranger of ...
' score, and also to re-record some of the main tracks from the film. As Klepacki was not allowed access to the original master recordings, he had to re-create the music by ear.


Reception

''Blade Runner'' received generally positive reviews. It held an aggregate score of 77% on GameRankings, based on sixteen reviews. '' Next Generation'' rated it four stars out of five, and stated that "the game's shortcomings seem irrelevant as the journey that Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford began 15 years ago is brought to an entirely new end at the player's command. All movie-licensed game publishers should take note." '' GamePro'' likewise judged that the game's strongest points are its faithfulness to the book and movie and the way the ending is determined by the player's actions throughout the game. They also complimented the cinematics, dialogue, and "riveting plot and slick style", though they criticized the character models for their "overwrought body language" and said that those who are not fans of ''Blade Runner'' would find it solid but unexciting. They gave it a 4.5 out of 5 for graphics, 5.0 for sound, 4.0 for control, and 4.5 for fun factor. ''
Science Fiction Weekly Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Lau ...
''s Peter Suciu awarded it an A+, writing the "computer-generated setting of ''Blade Runner'' is simply one of the best to arrive on computer desktops," and calling the game "an outstandingly enjoyable adventure simulation." '' Game Revolution'' Marke Cooke scored the game an A−, calling it "one of the best adventure games out there." ''RPGFan'' gave the game an overall rating of 93%, praising its pre-rendered backgrounds, with "rain, spotlights, Spinners or blimps advertising off-world vacations. The crisp images never fail to dazzle." Although the review pointed out that the graphics can become a "tad
blurry "Blurry" is a song by American rock band Puddle of Mudd. It was released on October 16, 2001, as the second single from the band's debut album '' Come Clean'' (2001). It was 2002's most successful rock song in the United States, topping the ''Bi ...
and pixilated," it was argued "this doesn't detract too much from these otherwise stunning visuals." In a 2006 review for
Adventure Gamers ''Adventure Gamers'' is a computer game website created by Marek Bronstring in March 1998 dedicated to the genre of adventure games. It publishes reviews and previews of adventure games, as well as opinion articles and interviews with game desi ...
, Chris Pickering scored the game 4.5 out of 5, praising it for its "glorious aesthetics, intriguing storyline, and well implemented controls." Less impressed was ''
GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
'' Ron Dulin, who scored the game 6 out of 10, calling it "an interesting mood piece, built upon some very detailed graphic work and an interesting premise – but somewhere along the production line, someone forgot to include a game." He was critical of the random nature of the game, especially the multiple endings; "To justify the number of wildly different endings, the designers have tried to keep some elements of the story very vague for the bulk of the story. But even with these safeguards, there are always a number of confusing contradictions and loose ends no matter how the story winds up." He concluded, "most of what's interesting about the game is exactly what was interesting about the film, and not much was done to extend the concepts or explore them any further. Fans of the film will undoubtedly overlook the game's flaws and enjoy living the life of the Blade Runner, even if it only lasts a few hours. But those who are awaiting the next generation of adventure games are advised to keep waiting." In a 2007 article for '' Computer and Video Games'', "''Blade Runner'': A Classic Revisited", Duncan Harris argued "critics may have been divided over the means by which you got there: a logical trail of clues, many of which were less the result of detective work than blind luck and idle exploration ..but you couldn't deny that here, for once, was a movie tie-in which put the movie first, dismissing thoughts of its own genre and letting the subject dictate the design. With its insular thinking, it's something the games industry all too rarely sees."


Sales and awards

''Blade Runner'' was a commercial success. In the United States alone, it sold 15,307 copies and earned $795,045 by November 30, 1997. Between January 1998 and July 1998, it sold another 47,939 copies in the region, which drew $2,283,055 in revenues. Westwood's Louis Castle reported that its lifetime sales had reached 800,000 units worldwide by February 2002. ''Blade Runner''s sales ultimately surpassed one million units by 2006; Castle claimed that it outsold ''
The Curse of Monkey Island ''The Curse of Monkey Island'' is an adventure game developed and published by LucasArts in 1997. A sequel to 1991's ''Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge,'' it is the third game in the Monkey Island (series), ''Monkey Island'' series. It follows ...
'' three to one. ''Blade Runner'' won the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' first annual
Interactive Achievement Award The D.I.C.E. Awards (formerly the Interactive Achievement Awards) is an award show in the video game industry started in 1998 and commonly referred to in the industry as the "video games Oscar". The awards are arranged by the Academy of Intera ...
(now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards) in the category "Computer Adventure Game of the Year"; it was also nominated for "Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics", "Outstanding Achievement in Software Engineering" and "Interactive Title of the Year", losing in the first category to ''
Riven ''Riven'' is a Adventure game#Puzzle adventure, puzzle adventure video game. It is the sequel to ''Myst'' and second in the Myst (series), ''Myst'' series of games. Developed by Cyan Worlds, it was initially published by Red Orb Entertainment, a ...
'' and in the second two to '' GoldenEye 007''. In 1998, it was nominated for "Adventure Game of the Year" by '' Computer Gaming World'' and for "Best Adventure Game" at the ''
PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...
'' awards, losing on both occasions to ''The Curse of Monkey Island''. In 2011,
Adventure Gamers ''Adventure Gamers'' is a computer game website created by Marek Bronstring in March 1998 dedicated to the genre of adventure games. It publishes reviews and previews of adventure games, as well as opinion articles and interviews with game desi ...
named ''Blade Runner'' the 21st-best adventure game ever released.


Sequel and re-release


Sequel

''Blade Runner'' sold well, but due to high development costs, the profit margin was low. According to Louis Castle, "The mere fact it was four CDs made it a very expensive game. And the deal we had with the Blade Runner Partnership meant it was not terribly profitable. It didn't do as well as you might think." Although Virgin were interested in doing a sequel, if a sequel were approved, the Blade Runner Partnership intended to increase the licensing fee. Ultimately, Westwood and Virgin concluded the cost of producing a game to top the original, coupled with the increased cost for licensing, made the prospect of a sequel economically untenable, as such a sequel would have to sell several million units to generate what would be considered an acceptable profit. In 2009, the Blade Runner Partnership offered
Gearbox Software Gearbox Software is an American video game development company based in Frisco, Texas. It was established as a limited liability company in February 1999 by five developers formerly of Rebel Boat Rocker. Randy Pitchford, one of the founders, s ...
the rights to the franchise, but production costs were estimated at $35 million and the project was scrapped.


Re-release

Speaking in 2015 regarding a possible re-release of the game via Steam or
GOG.com GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a digital distribution platform for video games and films. It is operated by GOG sp. z o.o., a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt based in Warsaw, Poland. GOG.com delivers DRM-free video games through it ...
, Louis Castle explained the
source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...
and assets were lost when Westwood moved its studio from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, thus making a re-release or a HD remaster impossible. Even if the code was found, to restore almost a
terabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...
of assets, whether for new pre-rendered backdrops or full real-time 3D, would cost tens of millions of dollars, making a re-release as unlikely as a sequel. The Blade Runner Partnership and
Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...
owned the rights to the game for many years by that point. However, the game finally made it to
GOG.com GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a digital distribution platform for video games and films. It is operated by GOG sp. z o.o., a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt based in Warsaw, Poland. GOG.com delivers DRM-free video games through it ...
on December 17, 2019, after an agreement with Alcon Interactive Group and the website, using
ScummVM Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a set of game engine recreations. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system, it also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companies ...
as detailed below.


ScummVM

Several attempts were made to reverse engineer the game's
engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...
. As it is technically complex with voxel graphics for the in-game actors, video backgrounds, and randomised paths, it took the ultimately successful project with combined efforts eight years to completion. The new Blade Runner engine was included in the game engine collection
ScummVM Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a set of game engine recreations. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system, it also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companies ...
on 13 October 2016 and took another three years till it was ready for public testing on 16 June 2019 and was included in ScummVM version 2.1.0.


Enhanced Edition

Nightdive Studios Night Dive Studios, Inc. (doing business as Nightdive Studios) is an American video game developer based in Vancouver, Washington. The company was founded in November 2012 by Stephen and Alix Kick, former video game artists for Sony Online Ent ...
and
Alcon Entertainment Alcon Entertainment, LLC is an American film production company, founded in 1997 by film producers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove. Since its establishment, Alcon Entertainment has developed and financed films that are ultimately distribut ...
announced they would be developing an Enhanced Edition of the game. It was originally planned to release in 2020 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4,
Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
and Nintendo Switch, but was delayed to an unspecified date due to technical issues. Stephen Kick of Nightdive explained that while the source code for the game was lost, they had reverse engineered it and reworked within their proprietary KEX engine they had used for other remastered games. In addition to support for modern systems, the Enhanced Edition will include updated character models, animations and cutscenes. Many of the supporting assets to make the fixed graphic scenes were also lost, so Nightdive used a combination of graphics tools and machine learning to upscale these for modern systems as well as increasing the frame rate on the video scenes. ''Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition'' was released on June 23, 2022. However, the game was met with complaints from players that the improved graphics were actually worse than the original game or what the unofficial ScummVM port had offered, but which Nightdive said they would fix in upcoming patches. Nightdive updated the Steam version of the ''Enhanced Edition'' to include the ScummVM version alongside the enhanced version a few days later.
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
listed ''Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition'' as the tenth-worst game of 2022.


References


External links

*
Video: How Westwood's Blade Runner created noir-2019 way back in 1997
(''Ars Technica'') {{Westwood Studios 1997 video games Adaptations of works by Philip K. Dick Blade Runner (franchise) Cyberpunk video games Detective video games Interactive Achievement Award winners Point-and-click adventure games ScummVM-supported games Single-player video games Video games about police officers Video games based on adaptations Video games based on films Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Frank Klepacki Video games set in 2019 Video games set in Los Angeles Video games with alternate endings Video games with voxel graphics Virgin Interactive games Westwood Studios games Windows games PlayStation 4 games Xbox One games Nintendo Switch games Neo-noir video games D.I.C.E. Award for Adventure Game of the Year winners