The world of point-and-click adventure titles is something to behold, with players from ages past reminiscing on the fun puzzle-solving adventures that they would go on in their free time. These more laid-back titles were grounds for telling fun and intuitive stories that players could immerse themselves in. Sometimes they were serious, and other times, they weren’t. Such is the story of Sam & Max.

Originally a comic created by Sam Purcell, which put two seemingly innocent-looking characters in situations that were more geared towards an older audience, both with personalities to match, the duo were called the “Freelance Police” and would work cases around their neighborhood. Sam & Max became so popular that the two of them would eventually get their own point-and-click from LucasArts, as well as their own TV show. The duo would be eventually be brought back for a new set of point-and-click adventures, made by Telltale Games. However, the world of point-and-click adventure titles have been largely sent to the wayside, with the invention of visual novels like Dangonronpa and Doki Doki Literature Club taking the spotlight for story-driven romps, that is until last year.

The first of the Sam & Max Telltale series was remastered for all to see, releasing in December of last year. This game was a faithful remaster of the full title, without much changed to it, however, the game did change bits of the dialogue as it was considered “out of touc.”. The game also re-recorded all the lines for the character Roscoe Bosco, who plays a larger role in the series, with his voice lines being replaced by voice actor Ogie Banks.

With the five-episode remaster of Sam & Max Save the world, players will be happy to know that on December 8^th, Sam & Max is going to be coming back for round two, as Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space is going to be remastered in the same way as the original titles.

Skunkape has posted online about what they’ve changed with the game since their previous endeavor with the first season. The whole breakdown for the title is on the game’s Steam page. However, here’s what they’ve changed with the game, and what fans can expect from the title.

The first thing the developers went over with the game is that since it’s a remaster, they’ve completely overhauled the visuals for the game. In the post, they stated that aside from upscaling the textures for the game, they’ve tweaked the game’s animation and environments to pull the title into the future, making animations smoother, and focusing on making the environments more detailed. Another thing they have focused on is the camera work in the game as well. Being that the original game ran on old desktop computers in 2007, computers weren’t normally in a 16:9 aspect ratio, so the game was always run at 4:3. However, with the remaster, they’ve tweaked the camera angles to make the game work in 16:9 as well as changed the camera to be more dynamic. Character acting for the models in the game has also been changed, allowing for more sequences and more emotive acting from the duo in the remastered version of the game.

Something else they’ve also done is change the design of some of the characters, looking to Steve Purcell, the creator of the comics to help them. By asking for feedback on some of the models, the main three that they’ve changed with his help are Kid Sam, Flint Paper, and the Demon Jurgen. The characters will now fit more closely to the aesthetic of the comics and include elements of the characters that didn’t completely work in previous versions. Skunkape has mentioned that one of their biggest changes to the characters was adding Jurgen’s Car Keys to his nipple ring, which was too risqué in 2007.

The next thing that’s been updated for the game is the sound. Skunkape explains that when the game was originally made in 2006-2008, making the game easy to download on the internet was something that the team was aiming for when releasing the game, therefore the one thing they sacrificed when making the title was the audio for the game. The voices were the one thing in the game that became horribly compressed, and players would have to wait until now to hear the real quality of the voices.

Lastly, there are updates to one of the biggest things that Telltale previously did, making choices from previous episodes, and putting them in the current and future ones. Sam & Max season two was the first to do this. It came in the form of the Decal System for Sam & Max’s DeSoto. This mechanic in the original game would then lay the foundation for Telltale’s breakout title, The Walking Dead. However, there was one huge caveat for the game, when playing the original, the game wouldn’t let players revisit episodes to pick up the decal if they missed it during their original playthrough. However, Skunkape has decided to fix that issue by reworking the Decal system from the ground up to allow players to pick up decals in the game even after they completed an episode. There’s also the addition of a Decal poster next to the DeSoto so players can see which decals they have, and which ones they’ve missed while they’re playing.

Also included in the game are the same upgrades from the remaster of season one, aside from two new accessibility options. One to remove the driving minigames from the title, making driving the DeSoto a removed part of the game, as well as adding the option to turn off lighting effects that might cause seizures in photosensitive individuals.

Skunkape has also removed the original episodes from steam, and those who didn’t pick them up before its removal will have to purchase the remaster to unlock the option to play the original episodes. There’s no set price on the game this time around, however, the remaster for the first season went for $20 on Steam, so it’s likely that this is going to be the price for the remaster. However, they’ve mentioned that while owners of the original season two won’t bet getting a discount due to changes in Steam’s discount policy, players who own the remaster of the game will be getting a discount on the second season when it launches on December 8^th, 2021.

With less than three weeks to go for the second season of the Sam & Max remaster, there’s going to be a new influx of fans in a series where witty writing, jazzy tunes, and cartoon violence are selling points. Hopefully, Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space will do what Sam & Max Save the World missed out on. However, it seems players won’t know until December 8^th rolls around the corner, and the game goes live.