The Classic 1997 BLADE RUNNER Video Game is Being Restored For PS4, Xbox One, and Switch
For those of you who are fans of the classic 1997 Blade Runner video game, you’ll be happy to learn that Nightdive Studios and Alcon Entertainment will be restoring it for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC.
The game was based on Ridley Scott's 1982 cyberpunk noir, but it was not a direct adaptation of the movie. The story for the film follows detective Ray McCoy (Harrison Ford) as he hunts down renegade replicants in a futuristic version of 2019 Los Angeles. The game's narrative runs tangentially with the events of the film.
The original game was developed by Westwood Studios, which no longer exists. They were best known for their Command & Conquer real-time strategy series. Back in 2015, Westwood Studios co-founder Louis Castle revealed in an interview that the original source code for the game had been lost when the company relocated from Las Vegas to Los Angeles after the studio merged with EA.
Since the source code was lost, it would make a remake of the game "impossible" without spending millions of dollars. Who the hell lost the source code!? That must’ve been frustrating. But, that didn’t stop Nightdive and Alcon from restoring the game! Larry Kuperman, head of business development at Nightdive, explained:
"It's true that the original Blade Runner source code was lost. We painstakingly reverse-engineered the code, importing it into our own KEX engine, a powerful tool that allows us to do console ports of classic titles, even in the face of quite challenging situations."
The game will be titled Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition and it will feature a "polished and premium restoration" with the help of the KEX game engine. The game will feature “updated character models, animations and cutscenes, as well as widescreen resolution support, keyboard and controller customization and more. The original foreign language translations (which include German, French, Italian and Chinese) of the original game have also been sourced for the Enhanced Edition.”
Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick went on to say:
"Blade Runner is still a jaw-dropping achievement on every level, so while we’re using KEX to upgrade the graphics and respectfully elevate the gaming experience in a way you’ve never seen before, we’re still preserving Westwood’s vision and gameplay in all its glory. While you can enjoy the benefits of playing the game on modern hardware, the game should look and feel not as it was, but as glorious as you remember it being.”
Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition is expected to launch later this year and I can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Source: THR