Annapurna announces Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth, its first internally developed game

Annapurna Interactive has announced that the first game to be developed by its in-house studio will take place in the Blade Runner universe.

Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth is the first all-new Blade Runner game in 25 years, and it will take place between the original movie and the sequel, Blade Runner 2049.

Annapurna says the game will “take place in the grim post-Blackout Los Angeles,” but hasn’t shared any additional information about the game or its release date, other than the trailer shown below.

The game will be directed by Chelsea Hash, who previously worked on Solar Ash, What Remains of Edith Finch and Radiohead’s Kid A Mnesia show.

Since its inception in 2016, Annapurna Interactive has been known for publishing critically acclaimed indie titles such as What Remains of Edith Finch, Outer Wirlds, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and Stray.

However, in 2020 the company announced that it was creating its own in-house studio, and in 2022 revealed that Hash was joining the new studio as game director, along with other members of the Solar Ash development team.

At the time, it wasn’t revealed what the new internal studio would be working on, but we now know it will be Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth.

The last Blade Runner game was a point-and-click adventure released on PC in 1997 by Command & Conquer developer Westwood Studios.

The game was re-released as an enhanced version in 2022 for PS4, Xbox One, Switch and PC, but players complained that the “improved” graphics were actually worse than the original game, which led to it being listed as Tenth worst match in 2022 on Metacritic.