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It's becoming increasingly hard to remember a time when we visualised our metropolitan future differently: no rain-polished streets reflecting the glare of neon signs, no fetid slums nestled snugly around imposing high-rises, no collective mass of humanity wearing the marks of economic oppression and state-sanctioned violence in their purposeless haste, their hunched postures, their fearful silence. In other words, it's becoming increasingly hard to remember how we imagined urban dystopias before the iconography of Blade Runner gatecrashed our collective consciousness and etched its initials on the concept.Given the momentous impact of Ridley Scott's film and our medium's affinity for science fiction, it may seem a little odd that video games didn't rush to exploit this grimy, evocative setting. For comparison's sake, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial was theatrically released within the same month as Blade Runner, June 1982. Whereas the former was adapted (albeit disastrously) before the year was over, we didn't get the chance to play Deckard until 1985 and, though nowhere near as infamous, CRL's effort wasn't much of an improvement, its "replidroid" chases requiring an impossible combination of split-second decisions and pixel-perfect accuracy to switch safely between crowded pavement and oncoming traffic in order to keep up with your quarry. Why the delayed response, especially in the unregulated wildlands of early '80s game development where acquiring legal rights wasn't necessarily a priority?
Taking a closer look at some of the more enduring tropes associated with the film, the reasons we have virtually no dystopian games from the first half of the decade become evident. Blade Runner did not feature a single overarching catastrophe, a war or an alien invasion, forcing a clear distinction between enemies and allies. An illusion of social stability is essential to urban dystopias; whatever threat we have to deal with, whether a replicant or a corrupt politician, typically comes from within. The challenge lies not so much with neutralising it, as with identifying it. Moreover, the introspective nature of the subgenre, an obvious debt to its film-noir roots, almost invariably leads to its most characteristic twist: a questioning of (and usually shift in) allegiances.
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