In two weeks you can play Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse on your Xbox for the very first time. The final season of Telltale’s episodic Sam and Max The trilogy was never ported to the Xbox when it was released in 2010, so fans of this comedy adventure series had to wait all these years.
For the uninitiated, Sam & Max are the Freelance Police, a pair of dog and rabbit detectives whose esoteric wit and unconventional crime-fighting techniques have entertained and baffled the masses for 37 years. Their works include indie comics, a Saturday morning cartoon and, of course, video games.
LucasArts was the first studio to Sam and Max Games, and I worked there as a producer, as Sam & Max: Freelance Police Officers was canceled in 2004. If you were an adventure game fan back then, you can probably remember the uproar—the game was almost finished, the previews were glowing, and 32,000 angry fans signed an online petition to reverse the decision.
The petition didn’t work, but it inspired me and several others Freelance police
One reason for Freelance policeThe reason for discontinuing was that it was a PC game and all the bestsellers at the time were for consoles. Telltale also started as a PC developer (it was still the biggest platform for adventure games, our favorite genre), but as the studio grew, we expanded to consoles as well. In 2009, we released the first two Sam and Max seasons, Sam & Max save the world And Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Spaceon Xbox 360.
Telltale made another Sam and Max Season, subtitled The Devil’s Playhousewhich was released in episodes from April to August 2010 – but that game never made it to Xbox. At this point in the studio’s history (before we really hit it big with The Walking Dead), we had our hands full refining our vision for interactive storytelling and taking on new licenses. We couldn’t support more than one or two platforms at a time, and although we always intended to The Devil’s Playhouse on Xbox, that just never happened… until now!
In an unfortunate twist of fate, Telltale ran into financial difficulties in 2018 and the studio closed. I was no longer working there, but I saw an opportunity to return to this series that had been so important to my career. (Even before I worked on Sam & Max: Freelance Police Officers
Since then, we have been remastering these games – a real labor of love to make them look and play as good as we always wanted, but didn’t have the resources or expertise to do back then. If you like our Sam & Max save the world or Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space When you buy remasters, you know what a huge improvement they are over the originals, with added widescreen and gamepad support, higher picture and sound quality, 4K graphics and HDR support on Xbox One X and newer, and many other additions and improvements.
The remastered version of Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse will complete the trilogy on August 14th and you can pre-order it today with a 10% discount. Compared to the first two seasons (which were among Telltale’s earliest games), The Devil’s Playhouse was developed by a larger team that had found its rhythm. It’s definitely the strangest and most ambitious of the three games, and we keep hearing from fans that it’s their favorite.
I don’t want to give anything away, but the basic plot is that Max (the rabbit thing) stumbles upon a magical toy that gives him random glimpses of the future. His newfound psychic powers attract the attention of an alien warlord named General Skun-ka’pe, who wants the toys of power for his own not-so-altruistic purposes… and things quickly spiral out of control.
Across five episodes (released all at once, Netflix style), you can play around with Max’s psychic powers, play as Sam and Max’s great-grandfathers, raid an Egyptian tomb, face Lovecraftian monsters, and fend off an army of Sam clones in sparkly gold underwear.
If you have any questions before playing this last entry in the Sam and Max Trilogy: The first two remasters are 40% off on Xbox until August 12th (our biggest discount yet).
And on August 14th, we invite you to take your seats, turn off your phones and prepare for an epic comedy saga. The lights are dimmed, the curtains are open… the show is about to begin in Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse!
