The long-term licensing partnership with Alcon will launch a tabletop RPG series drawing inspiration upon the full scope of the Blade Runner universe, spanning four decades of world-building across all forms of media including Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049.
BLADE RUNNER Roleplaying Game Announcement Trailer - Coming in 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhc0zFKux2g
Hot off their eight wins at the 2021 ENNIE Awards including Fan Favorite Publisher two years in a row, Free League Publishing is renowned for its range of best-selling, multiple award-winning RPGs such as ALIEN, Tales From the Loop, and Forbidden Lands. Tomas Härenstam, Free League co-founder and lead game designer of the ALIEN RPG, will fill the same role for Blade Runner, with setting writing by Joe LeFavi and original artwork by the lead ALIEN RPG artist Martin Grip.
The official Blade Runner RPG will propel players into the neon noir streets of Los Angeles as Blade Runners with different specialties, personalities – and memories. Set in the year 2037, the Core Rulebook begins the adventure shortly after the Wallace Corporation debuts the new Nexus-9 Replicants on Earth, giving players the choice to play as either human or Replicant Blade Runners.
“It is important for us to fully capture the Blade Runner experience and themes from all perspectives – even the city,” says game director Härenstam. “One of the most fascinating characterizations in Blade Runner is Los Angeles itself, and we want LA to act and react differently based upon your character, specialties, and agenda. Yet regardless of what you are, you're always a Blade Runner first and foremost – the ultimate outsider who must walk alone in a complex city and system where everyone could be a threat and no choice is without its compromises or consequences.”
The Blade Runner RPG and its line of future 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.
Apart from the core casework, the RPG will both in setting and mechanics also showcase key themes of Blade Runner – sci-fi action, corporate intrigue, existential character drama, and moral conflict – that encourage roleplay and challenge players to question your orders, empathize with your enemies, and make hard calls with high stakes and long-lasting implications.
Joe LeFavi of Genuine Entertainment, who brokered the deal on behalf of Free League, will serve as the lead setting writer, brand manager, and a producer on the game series. A life-long fan that's no stranger to Blade Runner, LeFavi is also a producer on the upcoming Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition video game with Nightdive Studios, as well as the producer behind Alcon’s art book The Art and Soul of Blade Runner 2049.
“It’s easy to get mesmerized by the noodle-slurping, blaster-shooting neon spectacle of it all, but Blade Runner is a retrofitted world with many layers, and at its core, it’s always been such an evocative yet relatable human drama to me,” says writer LeFavi. ”In classic noir fashion, it’s never afraid to challenge everyday people to make extraordinary choices and sacrifices, and really delve into that dark and delicious moral gray. That's why Blade Runner continues to make such a distinct impact on pop culture – not just for its iconic vision of the future, but for its themes and the pursuit and preseverence of humanity at the heart of science fiction at its best.”
The Blade Runner RPG is the latest collaboration between Free League and Genuine, as they’re also partners on the hit ALIEN RPG series. Genuine is also keeping quite busy at the game table, working alongside other publishers on a variety of high-profile licensed games including the growing line of best-selling, award-winning tabletop games and RPGs for the Dune franchise, the award-winning Altered Carbon RPG, the upcoming board games and RPG for The Dragon Prince franchise, and the Vampire: The Masquerade Rivals card game.
For more news and previews on the Blade Runner RPG, visit bladerunner-rpg.com. Then follow Free League Publishing on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, where fans can discover art and gameplay development ahead of the game’s release.
ABOUT ALCON ENTERTAINMENT
Co-founders and co-CEO's Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson founded Alcon Entertainment in 1997 with partner Frederick W. Smith, the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of FedEx.
Alcon has financed and produced or co-financed and co-produced 35 films to date including the Academy Award Best Picture nominee The Blind Side; the critically acclaimed Blade Runner 2049 starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford which won 2 Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects and received an additional 3 nominations; The Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman; and many others. Alcon is currently in post-production on Lullaby, the horror feature from director John R. Leonetti (Annabelle).
ABOUT ALCON TELEVISION GROUP
Alcon Television Group is an independently owned television studio and production company based in Los Angeles. Founded in 2012 as a division of Alcon Entertainment, Alcon Television Group finances, develops, produces, and distributes a diverse slate of scripted content with global market appeal for distribution on premium subscription networks, digital platforms and major cable and broadcast networks.
Alcon Television Group’s latest projects include season five of the critically acclaimed epic space series The Expanse which airs on Amazon and boasts a 100% Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes; the animated children’s series Pete the Cat, a co-production with Amazon Studios based on the best-selling children’s book series currently available on the streaming service; and Blade Runner – Black Lotus, a highly-anticipated anime series developed in partnership with Adult Swim and Crunchyroll inspired by Alcon’s Oscar-winning feature Blade Runner 2049.
Past projects for Alcon Television Group include the Grammy award-winning and 5-time Emmy-nominated HBO documentary series The Defiant Ones which chronicled the divergent roots and unlikely partnership of Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. The Company’s first co-production was the Emmy-nominated documentary Sinatra: All or Nothing at All for HBO from Oscar winning director Alex Gibney. The intimate portrait of Sinatra as a singer, actor, father, husband, and philanthropist remains one of HBO’s most successful shows in the 50+ demographic.
ABOUT GENUINE ENTERTAINMENT
Genuine is a leading producer and brand manager of best-selling, award-winning stories, games, and geekery for beloved genre entertainment brands. A licensing expert across all corners of pop culture, we specialize in authentic, premium contributions that grow franchises and fandoms in new markets alongside best-in-class partners. Our dream portfolio of top media companies and intellectual properties includes the Alien RPG with Free League (2020 Gold ENNIE Award for Best Game); the Altered Carbon RPG with Hunters (2021 ENNIE Judges’ Spotlight Award); Alcon’s The Art and Soul of Blade Runner 2049 art book; the Blade Runner video game with Nightdive Studios; The Dragon Prince master tabletop gaming program, including Battlecharged from Brotherwise Games and Fandom’s Tales of Xadia RPG (2021 ENNIE Award for Best Family Game); the Dune master tabletop gaming program, including Dire Wolf’s Dune: Imperium (2020 Golden Geek for Best Card Game), the Dune RPG from Modiphius, Dune: House Secrets from Portal Games, and GF9’s Dune (2019 Golden Geek for Best Thematic Game, 2020 UK Games Expo People’s Choice Award for Best Strategic Game); and the Vampire: The Masquerade card game and comic series from Renegade Game Studios and Vault respectively. Come play at genuineent.com.
Free League Publishing is a Swedish game creator and publisher dedicated to speculative fiction. We have published a wide range of award-winning tabletop roleplaying games and acclaimed art books set in strange and wondrous worlds.
Our game portfolio include the upcoming edition of Twilight:2000, Tales From the Loop The Board Game, The One Ring™ RPG, the official ALIEN RPG (Gold ENNIE for Best Game 2020), the Gothic horror game Vaesen (Best RPG - People´s Choice on UKGE 2021, winner of three ENNIE Awards 2021), the pitch-black fantasy RPG Mörk Borg (winner of four ENNIE Awards 2020), the alternate '80s Tales from the Loop (winner of five ENNIE Awards 2017, including Best Game), the retro-fantasy Forbidden Lands (winner of four ENNIE Awards 2019), the postapocalyptic Mutant: Year Zero (Silver ENNIE for Best Rules 2015), the science fiction game Coriolis - The Third Horizon (Judge's Spotlight Award 2017) and the dark fantasy game Symbaroum.
We have also published the art books Tales from the Loop, Things from the Flood, The Electric State and The Labyrinth by internationally acclaimed visual artist Simon Stålenhag, as well as the illustrated edition of the Lovecraft classics At the Mountains of Madness - Volume 1 and The Call of Cthulhu by the praised artist François Baranger.