The current release of Blade Runner by GOG is powered by ScummVM, which basically means it is using the Blade Runner engine implemented by the ScummVM team to run the game.

Blade Runner engine by ScummVM
This engine is a product of reverse engineering the original game for several years by members of our team.

In addition, we added improvements, implemented bug fixes and restored content (available in a separate "Restored content mode".

Recently, our ScummVM wiki page about the BladeRunner engine was updated by another member of the ScummVM developers team, CadiH, to include consolidated all relevant information about the game (info, installation, required data files, MD5 hash per known/supported versions, info on subtitles, debugger commands etc.).

https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Blade_Runner

In this page we included a "Improvements" section, where we took some time to list noteworthy improvements, bug fixes and restored content as well as current plans for future tasks per category.

https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Blade_Runner#Improvements

Please, note, that the content in the wiki reflects the status of the engine as is now, in the developer version 2.3.0git. We try to keep it up to date, but it will always be in synch with the latest developer version.

So, keep in mind, that to get the listed improvements, fixes and restored content, in your game, you'll need the latest version of ScummVM. Preferably the daily development build, provided you understand that a daily developer version could contain instabilities.

Otherwise, and if you want to be on the safe side, try to have the latest stable version of ScummVM installed for the game.

SUBTITLES

Also, our subtitles for the game get revisions with corrections and technical upgrades from time to time, so it is always useful to check if you have the latest subtitles version installed. Currently they are at revision 6, and support the English, French and Spanish versions. Non supported dubs will get the English subtitles by default (if the file from ScummVM was downloaded and placed in the game folder).

https://www.scummvm.org/games/#addons-bladerunner

Please let us know of any feedback you have for improvements and corrections (on the wiki content, subtitles, or engine/ game issues)!

Thank you all for great care which this game deserves!

Nice work. I own the original released german cd version. Is it posdible to bring german subs into gog with this?

The CD versions should work with ScummVM, so you should be able to run the game (via ScummVM) without the need for a repurchase.

However, the original German version game does not include subtitles. None of the English, French, Italian, Spanish or German dubs do.

The subtitles are essentially fan made efforts on a voluntary basis to produce a transcript and subtitles from the audio files.

I did the English transcript and subtitles, the French is done by Kwama57, and Spanish is by Víctor González Fraile and Geek Ob.

I can help with the process, if you want to do this or know of a fan subbing team that would want to do it. I can offer support for the technical aspects and compilation of the subtitles in a format that the game "understands" (when ran via ScummVM) but I cannot help with the German transcript, as my German are unfortunately very limited.

I've written some instructions here about the process:
https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/tree/master/devtools/create_bladerunner/subtitles

But again if those seem too technical I can help out with that stuff.

If you take up on this task, you may reach me on the ScummVM discord (as antoniou79), where I'm usually active on day hours (European time), so we can resolve any issues quicker.
https://discord.gg/ReGSkVs

It would be awesome to have the game subtitled in as many languages as possible. I'm working (slowly as of late, due to work) on Greek subtitles and I know people who are working on Chinese, Hebrew, Polish. There may be more that I am not aware of. However, for the more complex languages (eg. Greek, Chinese, Hebrew) some additional work will be needed on the engine, and that's planned for the immediate future, as soon as I get enough spare time in my hands :)

Thank you for your detailed reply. At the moment my time is a little short, while working on ather projects. But I'll keep an eye on it.

Thanks for all the hard work.

Many of the mentioned and especially the planned improvements sound great.

i'd like to thank the author of this post for having helped me out on another thread but i'd also like to take this opportunity to thank him and all the community of which he is part of for the tremendous work behind all this, it's really something after all these years being so passionate and responsive and also productive in keeping up a legacy for a great game. it is a work of love and gaming community needs this kind of stuff.
so thank you.

I realize this is a bit random, so I hope it's OK to ask this here:
With older, low-res games I really like scanlines/CRT filters. Is there any way to get one working on this game? I tried Reshade but couldn't get it to work.

Thanks!

As far as I know there is no such support integrated currently into ScummVM, although I know lots of people (from the devs team too) who would like that to be implemented. (However, as alwyas, this requires someone with the proper know-how has to put in the hours and work to make it happen)

The topic comes up once in a while.
Here's a relevantly recent forum thread about it:
https://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15108

It seems like the members posting in the thread suggest and have tested a few approaches.

Someone wrote that Reshade would work if you set OpenGL as the renderer, which can be done from the ScummVM launcher, via the global options (Options->Graphics (Tab)->Graphics Mode), or per game if you override the global graphic settings (Edit Game... -> Graphics (Tab) -> Override global graphic settings (checkbox) -> Graphics mode).

I haven't tested it myself, though, but there might be something re-usable to find in that topic.

Oh cool. Thanks! I didn't know SVM was its own thing. I've just been starting the games through GOG itself. I'll definitely check how that works and use OpenGL then! I assume that would work with I Have not Mouth And I Must Scream as well since it is also SVM, so I'll give that a shot right away too. Thanks again!

I just bought the game and installed it, looking forward to playing it.

I can't load the game, it crashes right after the ScrummVM screen, game never loads :(

Please, provide a few more details about your setup.
What is your Operating System (Windows, Linux etc)?
Is there any error message before the game crashes?

I don't recall such a severe crash being reported to us. If you tried the GOG FAQ and/or support, you could also try downloading a more recent version of ScummVM and run the game with that one.

I'd recommend one of the ScummVM daily builds.
The "Additional snapshot builds" are more optimized and may perform better. They are Windows only.
https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#daily
The daily development builds may be slower but they are a zip file and you can extract eg. over the current ScummVM folder in your GOG installation for Blade Runner, overwriting its contents. The development builds are under the "ScummVM latest" column.
https://buildbot.scummvm.org/#/snapshots

Hello Blade Runner fans!

A few hours ago the official ScummVM 2.7.0 version got released.

This version fixes a few small bugs for the Blade Runner engine as well as adds a bit more stuff for the Restored Content mode (still waaaaaay more to come!). It also adds shaders' support which means that you can check some retro CRT display or VHS effects' shaders among others, while playing the game, if you want.

The subtitles current version is v8 (Aug 9, 2022) and still available as a free download on the ScummVM site:
https://www.scummvm.org/games/#addons-bladerunner

I am including a quick changelog here with the most noteworthy changes (summed up) since version 2.6.0 (Aug 1st, 2022):

Keep in mind that the changelog may contain spoilers especially for anyone who has not played the game to get all the endings.

Changelog
----------
2.7.0 (Feb 26, 2023)
Engine Updates:
- Added an option to not show subtitles during the intro movie text crawl
- Optimized some math calculations for even better performance
- Added a special secret in McCoy's room :)
- Fixed a regression for toggling the privacy of a clue in hacked KIA
- Fixes for the end credits, including an option for correct credits in Spanish version

Restored Content:
- Fixed missing or duplicate quotes for localized version of the game
- Restored a few more quotes in existing dialogue

If I get the time, I might post a full changelog in the same format, for changes since ScummVM 2.1.0 which is the version that the GOG classic Blade Runner release includes. The Enhance Edition uses ScummVM 2.5.1, for the classic edition.

Neat. Does this fix the issue with the credits we talked about? Also, any news on the subtitles? I figure they don't get updated too often, since they are multi-language and probably need testing from multiple people, but I was wondering how are things proceeding on that front.

Yes, it should. Latest version of subtitles should also have the fixes for the localized versions.

Since v8 (current) of subtitles, only minor corrections have been made, if any.