Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition

If gameplay is all that is of importance, Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition remains one of the finest examples outside of a Lucasarts' title, bringing together a great story and interesting mechanics. If you want the whole package however, it may be best to look elsewhere for a definitive version. The Nintendo Switch of course does have that major advantage of gaming on the go and on a smaller screen, it may just look that little bit more appealing.

It isn’t yet retirement time for the Blade Runner game, but as enhanced versions go, this one takes a solid game and sadly weakens it, much like a Replicant’s limited timespan tragically does to them.

Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition is a replicant of the cult classic adventure game, painstakingly created by Nightdive, and still an enthralling experience today. Changes will alert the keen-eyed detective, however, and it’s debatable whether this new version is ultimately any more ‘enhanced’ than the original.

Judging Blade Runner Enhanced Edition is a tough job. If it is true that the comparative trailers with the graphics of the original version had shown a very faithful approach, more of reconstruction and exaltation of the Los Angeles atmospheres than of actual revision, one cannot fail to notice several defects that affect the final result. The interface and subtitles need to be totally revised, not to mention the unforgivable translation into Italian, one of the worst we've had the opportunity to see in the gaming sector; in addition, the restyling work, although voluntarily adhering to the aesthetics of the 1997 title, could (and perhaps should) have attempted to make certain situations and elements on the screen more legible. The work done by Nightdive Studios is therefore, all in all, marginal, and indeed the additions - the renewed interface and subtitles - are undoubtedly poorly implemented. Having made all these necessary premises, we believe that Blade Runner Enhanced Edition is an essential purchase for all science fiction fans and, in particular, for those who love the universes - literary and cinematographic - born from the works of Philip Kindred Dick: the story hatched by Westwood Studios and brought back to life by Nightdive Studios offers new insights into 2019's dystopian Los Angeles and its inhabitants.

Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition is for the most nostalgic players but it is not a game for people of this generation. The original story remains but the graphics have not aged well at all and as a result we have a clunky game. Only recommended for those who like the genre or who have played the original from 1997.

Many will see the score at the bottom of this review and immediately write off Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition. However, there is something genuinely brilliant buried deep inside this Switch release, beneath the lingering issues with pacing and narrative design as well as the myriad painful “enhancements” Nightdive Studios has dumped on top. To cut through all that, you will need a great love for Blade Runner and cyberpunk, saintly patience, a walkthrough on hand, a strict requirement to play on console rather than PC, and a pair of rose-tinted glasses. If you have all those things then you may still see life in this game’s eyes, but we don’t need a Voigt-Kampff machine to tell this version from the real thing.

Finding anything positive about the new (sic) Blade Runner is almost impossible. The time-honored legend didn't age well in the remastered edition after 25 years, and perhaps it would be better if it remained only in our memories.

If you are really into the Blade Runner franchise and can put up with the shortcomings, I suppose you can get some enjoyment from Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition. Everyone else should take a pass on this remastered adventure game. Maybe if the studio comes out with a “More Enhanced” edition, with plenty more fixes in place, it may be worth another look.

Unfortunately this version is let down by annoying controls, weird audio glitches and multiple crashes – meaning this is hard to recommend unless you’re one of the biggest Blade Runner fans out there. And even then…