Blade Runner Is Getting An Official RPG

September 22, 2021

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Get ready to give your players the Voight-Kampff test to see who really is human in a newly announced tabletop RPG adaptation of Blade Runner.

Blade Runner is iconic. So iconic that you probably already know it was adapted from the Phillip K. Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and are already quoting your favorite lines from your favorite cut of the movie (there is a correct answer as to which one is the best). But did you know that Blade Runner is never once mentioned in the book, and is in fact, a term taken from another novel entirely? It’s true, The Blade Runner or alternatively The Bladerunner is the name of a 1974 novel by Alan E. Nourse about surviving in a world where access to health care is so restricted that people will smuggle medical supplies to surgeons who illegally venture out at night to just try and provide medical care in a world already too real for most Americans.

But let’s let little bits of trivia like that be lost in time, like tears in rain–because the movie is what captured everyone’s minds. Scored by Vangelis, with a stellar performance from Harrison Ford, the movie introduced the neon-noir world of LA in 2019, full of flying cars and androids indistinguishable from human. And that world is coming to a tabletop near you with the announcement of a new RPG from Free League. Check it out.

via Free League

This is the BLADE RUNNER roleplaying game – a neon-noir wonderland that’ll take your breath away. One way or another. An evocative world of conflicts and contrasts that dares to ask the hard questions and investigate the powers of empathy, the poisons of fear, and the burdens of being human during inhumane times. An iconic and unforgiving playground of endless possibilities that picks you up, slaps you in the face, and tells you to wake up.

Time to live. Or time to die.

This marks yet another big sci-fi property for Free League who also make the Alien RPG and who brought to life the world of Simon Stålenhag’s Tales from the Loop, all of which are worth mentioning because the newly announced RPG will use the same ruleset: the Year Zero Engine.

The official Blade Runner RPG will propel players into the streets of Los Angeles as Blade Runners with unique specialties, personalities – and memories.

The core game and its line of expansions will push the boundaries of investigative gameplay in tabletop RPGs, giving players a range of tools to solve an array of cases far beyond retiring Replicants. Beyond the core casework, the RPG will both in setting and mechanics showcase key themes of Blade Runner – sci-fi action, corporate intrigue, existential character drama, and moral conflict – that challenge players to question your friends, empathize with your enemies, and explore the poisons and perseverance of hope and humanity during such inhumane times.

Per Free League’s announcement, though, the rules will be “further developed and uniquely tailored for Blade Runner.” Given that they are looking to capitalize on the noir aspects of Blade Runner with existential drama and moral conflict, we’re very curious what that tailoring will look like. You can get a glimpse of the game in this trailer:

Aside from that, we know the game will be set in the year 2037, shortly after the Wallace Corporation debuts the new Nexus-9 Replicants on Earth, and that players will be Blade Runners, but they can be humans or Replicants. Whatever you decide you’ll be a member of the Rep-Detect Unit and will have a lot to wrestle with:

You’ll face impossible choices and find beauty and humanity in the stubborn resilience to keep fighting. To persevere through pain. To agonize over itches you can’t scratch. To do questionable and extraordinary things, chasing after fleeting moments of love, hope, and redemption to be lost in time like tears in rain.