Annapurna Interactive has revealed Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth, a new story set between the original Blade Runner film and Blade Runner 2049.
Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth is set after the events of the Black Out, posing a question of what purpose a Blade Runner has if there are no more Replicants to hunt. The trailer’s voice over reads:
“Lots of people lost things in the Black Out.
I was lucky, I just lost a job.
But now they want me back.”
It’s certainly a gorgeous and visually arresting trailer, and it seems that you’ll be exploring and searching through the past. More details about the game will be coming in the months ahead, so I guess we’ll just sit and wait for that.
Or maybe we’ll have to revisit the previous video game adaptations of Blade Runner? The first crack of the Voight-Kampff test was in 1985 with a game for ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad. It had a loosely similar story arc to the movie as you hunt down replicants that have made their way to Earth. Sinclair User called the game pretentious and described the graphics as plodding, so it’s not great.
Significantly better was the 1997 point and click adventure Blade Runner by Westwood Studios, which grew a cult following large enough to justify a remastered Enhanced Edition release by Nightdive Studios in 2022. Unfortunately this remaster was not met with favourable views by gamers, as the game compared poorly to the original release run through ScummVM.
So… Annapurna don’t have a particularly high bar to overcome with this one. I hope they do, though.
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