Adventure Gamers - Forums

Although there have been many requests from fans to have Blade Runner re-released via Steam or GOG.com, Louis Castle ( co-founder of Westwood Studios, and director and lead artist) stated that the original source code 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 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.

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.

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 . 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.As Castle explains, the randomness of the plot leads to a myriad of gameplay possibilities and outcomes.

“The suspects may or may not be guilty, and they may or may not be human. If you retire a human, you lose - but not right away. If you retire a human, you suffer the consequences. That means once it’s discovered, the cops will be after you. If the cops are after you, and there is enough evidence, you will be shot or incarcerated, and the game is over. If they suspect you, but you’re able to weasel your way out of it, that’s part of the game as well.”

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. Howe 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. This aspect of the game the developers to liken Blade Runner to simulation games such as SimCity rather than traditional adventure games such as Myst.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.”

Although the game sold extremely well, it cost a lot to make, and, as such, did not generate a great deal of profit. Virgin was interested in doing a sequel, but 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.” If a sequel went ahead, The Blade Runner Partnership wanted a larger cut of the revenue, and both Westwood and Virgin concluded the cost of producing a game to top the original, plus the deal the BR Partnership wanted, made the possibility of doing a sequel economically untenable - it would have to sell several million units to generate what would be considered an acceptable profit for the company. As such, the sequel was never made.In 2009, The Blade Runner Partnership offered Gearbox Software the rights to the franchise, but production costs were estimated at $35m, and the project was scrapped.The Blade Runner Partnership and Electronic Arts currently own the rights to the game.

Now 20th anniversary is approaching only hope a new adventure due to untitled BR sequel movie.

What’s with the pseudoacademics,why questioning retrieving from articles that’s the way how wikipedia pages been written.

Stuff about link deleted.

well, nothing new here for me, but thanks Gabe anyways, for reminding us of this great gem of all the history of adventure gaming.

i like to mention that this game is playable with the old Virgin 4CDs release on any modern computer, by using the installer provided at the sierrahelp page.

I’ve played it several times, one of the very best adventure games I’ve ever played. Luckily, used copies of the game are easily found, another Bladerunner adventure would be nice, but I’m happy with the one we got.

Blade Runner will always be on the top 5 of my all time best adventure games. I re-played it recently at it still holds up better than most games done in the 90’s. Its design is actually very modern in many ways, not the least beacause of all the paths you take lead into some sort of ending with different people dead and saved.

My longer taken about it: http://playernone.blogspot.fi/2015/11/great-games-blade-runner.html

eriktorbjorn - 21 March 2016 07:23 PM

I played though it twice, several years ago. My only quibble was that there didn’t seem to be much connection between your actions and the outcome. The first time, I played it “cruel but fair”, trying to capture every replicant I could find but never breaking the rules to do so. Result: At the end of the game, I eloped with one.

Well it has 12 different endings, all based on who’s replicant and who’s not as well as whom you find, kill or let go. The changes are not as much tied on the basic game puzzles and flow, but who’s randomly chosen to be a replicant (a design trick that happens every time you start a new game)

The endings themselves can take place either in the Moonbus or in a car McCoy uses to escape.

tomimt - 22 March 2016 04:08 AM

The changes are not as much tied on the basic game puzzles and flow, but who’s randomly chosen to be a replicant (a design trick that happens every time you start a new game)

The endings themselves can take place either in the Moonbus or in a car McCoy uses to escape.

what exactly you meant by this ‘design trick’?

Oscar - 23 March 2016 06:35 AM

but I could get behind the idea of a game having multiple paths with every game being different the moment you start it up.

That’s exactly how it works. As far I know Clovis, the replicant leader, is the only one who’s always a replicant of the main cast. Everyone else can be either a human or replicant.

tomimt, i am talking to you