After a long (and in my case, slightly impatient) wait, Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse – the third and regrettably final season of Telltale Games’ episodic point-and-click adventure series – will be getting the remaster treatment on 14th August this year.
Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse originally released back in 2010, wrapping up Telltales’ Sam & Max adventures in style, following the release of 2006’s Sam & Max: Save the World and 2007’s Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space.
For their third and final Telltale outing, the irrepressible crime-fighting dog and bunny duo – originally created by cult comic book artist Steve Purcell – faced down Eldritch gods, alien warlords, and more in a battle to control an ancient, otherworldly power.
Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered! Now available! As for this year’s Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered (which was originally due in 2023 before getting a bit of a delay), it’s once again being handled by developer Skunkape Games – which acquired the rights to Telltale’s Sam & Max adventures in 2018 after the studio shut its doors, with many of the team having worked on the original games back in the day.
“When Max stumbles upon a mysterious toy that allows him to glimpse the future,” explains the official blurb, “the Freelance Police unwittingly arouse the attention of a host of villains hellbent on acquiring the magical Toys of Power. To prevent the Devil’s Toybox from falling into the wrong hands, Sam & Max must face their most frightening adversary yet: the power of Max’s mind.”
Skunkape hasn’t shared much in the way of specifics about its remastering work for The Devil’s Playhouse, but it seems reasonable to assume it’ll include most of the improvements seen in the studio’s lovingly handled remasters of Save the World and Beyond Time and Space.
Expect the likes of enhanced graphics and audio, dynamic lighting, improved lip syncing, revised character models more in keeping with Steve Purcell’s original designs, new acting and camerawork, new music from original composer Jared Emerson-Johnson, a new user interface, controller support, and more.
Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered will be available for PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC (via Steam and GOG) when it launches on 14th August. And if you wouldn’t mind making a brand-new Sam & Max game next Skunkape, that’d be grand.
