Blade Runner is Finally Available on the GOG Store

Did you know that there was a Blade Runner game released for the PC? Don’t worry, I’ll forgive you if you didn’t. Releasing back in 1997, despite being widely praised on launch, it has largely slipped under the radar since. Given its age, you might’ve expected it to have long been available to purchase since. That is, after all, the case with many (and much older) titles. To date, however, you have only been able to play it by owning an original copy.

Fortunately, I still have my boxed original from 1997 (yes, that I bought with my own (not very hard) earned pocket money). I also, as a matter of fact, also have a second copy. Why the second copy? Well, I saw the cd-roms in a charity shop last year for £1 and just had to make them mine!

If you haven’t managed to play this game yet, however, and have always had it on your bucket list, then I have excellent news for you. Blade Runner is now available to buy, download and play right now thanks to GOG.com (Good Old Games).

Blade Runner – Why has it taken so long to come back to PC?

Cutting a very long story short, it has proven to be very difficult to get this game to work on modern systems. Fortunately, earlier this year ScummVM announced that they may finally have found a workaround. After a lot of dedicated fans helped in the testing process, Blade Runner was confirmed as ‘good’ for modern systems.

As such, it was only a matter of time before someone picked up the (highly convoluted rights) to the PC game to sell again. And here we now have it!

What Do We Think?

Blade Runner was released in 1997 as one of the last ‘Westwood Studio’ releases before EA came in and swallowed their soul. In terms of gaming releases, however, it was a truly remarkable technical feat.

Multiple endings, a (semi) non-linear story and an excellent stand-alone plot that ran in tandem (and gave more than a few nods to) the original film. Oh, and even some of the original cast came back to reprise their roles. This game was a love letter to Blade Runner fans.

What stands out most for Blade Runner, however, was that it didn’t need a 3D accelerator card. Through the clever use of a technique known as “slice animations”, 3D models were essentially able to be broken down into 2D representations. This resulted in a much lower polygon count than you might think when looking at the game running and, ultimately, meant that a much greater portion of PC owners (in the then-fledgling gaming market) could access this release.

Available on the GOG store for only £6.89, I honestly can’t recommend this game enough. You can check out the store page via the link here!

What do you think? Have you ever played Blade Runner before? Are you going to give this a try? – Let us know in the comments!