Blade Runner

Blade Runner ranks among the most ambitious adventure games of the nineties and, at the same time, among the most successful game adaptations of a film source. The player takes on detective Ray McCoy, who in rainy Los Angeles in 2019 gets assigned a case involving a group of replicants. The plot runs parallel to the film rather than replacing it, so familiar locations and motifs appear from a different angle while the well-known storyline remains untouched. McCoy walks crime scenes, collects clues, analyzes photographs, and interrogates suspects, while gradually starting to doubt which side he's actually on himself.

The most interesting part is the structure: the suspects aren't fixed, the game decides at each playthrough who among the characters is a replicant, and side characters move through the world on their own schedule even when the player isn't around to see it. The investigation can be conducted harshly or leniently, and the game has several different endings depending on who McCoy kills, who he lets live, and how he treats his companion. Technically it was Westwood's own solution combining pre-rendered backgrounds with characters built from voxels, so everything ran in real time without needing a 3D accelerator; in exchange for a soft, at times blurry image, the game gained smoothness and the freedom to move about the streets.

Atmosphere is the game's main asset. Neon signs, endless rain, industrial smog, and music drawing on the original film's themes create a setting the player remembers longer than the individual puzzles. The voice acting is extensive and the game shipped on several discs, which back then was a sign of a genuinely major production. Critics praised especially the variability of the case and its mood, while criticizing the occasional lack of clarity about where to go next. Today Blade Runner is available in a restored version and stands as an early showcase of how an adventure game can be built on investigation and moral ambiguity instead of item collecting.