LucasArts made some of the best adventure games during its heyday in the 1990s, like Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, The Secret of Monkey Island and Full Throttle. While LucasArts games are full of memorable characters, it's hard to find a more iconic duo than Sam & Max.
The crime-fighting pair have been capturing the hearts of gamers for over three decades and, after ten long years, the characters are finally returning to the gaming world in the upcoming VR title Sam & Max: This Time It's Virtual. With the unlikely duo being out of the spotlight for so long, let's take a look at their history in preparation for their next adventure.
Sam & Max didn't start their crime-fighting careers in video games. Their journey actually began when their creator, Steve Purcell, started finishing his younger brother's half-written comics about an anthropomorphic dog and a bizarre-looking rabbit teaming up to rid the streets of evildoers. Purcell would exaggerate the characters while giving them zany dialog to irritate his younger brother. After a while, his brother grew tired of Sam & Max and gave Steve the rights to the characters for his birthday.
Sam & Max really came to fruition once Purcell entered art school. He started developing the characters' personalities and used them in various school projects and comic strips. Eventually, Purcell's cartoon strips started gaining attention from another artist, who asked him if he wanted to publish a full-length Sam & Max comic. Purnell agreed and began working on his first feature.
Shortly after releasing the first full-length Sam & Max comic in 1987, Purcell answered a LucasArts ad calling for artists willing to learn computer animation. Purcell impressed LucasArts was was hired right away. He started designing background and animations for several games including Zak McKracken, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Secret of Monkey Island.
While Purcell advanced in his new career at Lucas Arts, his comics began gaining traction with many of the company's employees. Sam & Max comics were passed around the studio and became extremely popular with Purcell's co-workers. Eventually, the duo started making their way into video games, appearing as side characters in a few adventure titles. Sam & Max became so popular within the company that LucasArts president, Kelly Flock, approached Purcell and asked him if he would license the characters for its new video game. Purcell agreed, and the Sam & Max series was born.
The detective duo made their video game debut in the 1993's Sam & Max Hit the Road, which took inspiration from the 1989 Sam & Max comic On the Road. The wacky adventure title was a hit and pole-vaulted the unlikely pair into video game stardom. By the mid-90s, Sam & Max were video game icons and even received their own animated series titled The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police in 1997. The series gained a loyal following but was canceled a year later. By the end of the '90s, Sam & Max were household names enjoying mainstream success few other video game characters achieve.
LucasArts wanted to capitalize on Sam & Max's newfound fame and planned a sequel to their 1993 adventure. Infinite Machine announced it would be developing Sam & Max Plunge Through Space in 2001, but the developer went bankrupt later that year. In 2002, LucasArts started developing Sam & Max: Freelance Police, which would bring the characters into a 3D environment for the first time as they solved another mystery in an unconventional world. Sadly, LucasArts canceled the game in 2004. This upset fans, some of whom even started an unsuccessful petition to revive the game. Unfortunately for Sam & Max fans, LucasArts was straying away from the adventure game genre.
Sam & Max began drifting into obscurity until its licensing contract expired with LucasArts. Purcell decided to take his franchise to Telltale Games after it agreed to make Sam & Max into an episodic video game series in 2005. The franchise received three seasons over a five year period, pleasing many longtime fans and newcomers. Sam & Max's last adventure, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, launched in 2010 before the series began a 10-year hiatus.
The iconic investigators are being resurrected once again in the upcoming VR title Sam & Max: This Time It's Virtual. The game will take Sam & Max into the realm of virtual reality, painting the characters in an exciting light that will introduce a new generation to the unconventional heroes while, hopefully, giving longtime fans what they've been waiting for. The title is expected to release in the first half of 2021.