Sam & Max Remasters - FAQ
We know you've got questions. Well whaddaya know, we've got answers! Read on for everything you ever wanted to know about the Sam & Max remasters but were afraid to ask.
Who are Sam & Max?
Individually they are a six-foot dog in a suit (Sam) and a hyperkinetic rabbity-thing (Max) with sharp wit, big guns (don’t ask where Max keeps his), and their own unique way of fighting crime. Collectively they are the Freelance Police, stars of award-winning comics by Steve Purcell, a 1990s LucasArts adventure game, a short-lived Canadian TV show, and three seasons of episodic games released by Telltale Games between 2006 and 2010.
How can these Sam & Max remasters exist? I thought Telltale Games went out of business!
After Telltale closed its doors in 2018, four members of the Sam & Max development team acquired the rights to the studio’s Sam & Max games. With help from several other former Telltale employees, we’re remastering all three seasons of Sam & Max episodic games, so old fans and new players can enjoy this classic series once again.
So far we’ve released Sam & Max Save the World (aka Season One) and Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space (aka Season Two) for Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PC, and PlayStation. Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse will release on PC and consoles in 2024.
So are the remasters affiliated with Telltale?
Nope. Many of Telltale’s other games and the Telltale name itself were acquired by LCG Entertainment. That company isn’t involved with Skunkape’s Sam & Max remasters. (But they have helped us out with a few logistical issues, and we appreciate it!)
Why remaster the Sam & Max seasons?
The Sam & Max games were some of Telltale’s earliest releases. The studio went on to create The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Batman, and more—and the team learned a lot in the process! In the twelve years between Telltale’s first Sam & Max episode and the studio’s closure, the game engine became more sophisticated, the choreography and cinematography evolved, and the team learned a ton about how to tell stories interactively.
Initially we only planned to patch the Sam & Max seasons on PC, so they would work better on today’s computers. But as we got into it, we realized there was a lot more we wanted to do—some things we can do now thanks to better tech, and others we didn’t do back then because we didn’t know how. Plus, there were some things we wanted to fix that we just couldn't. (Well, not without rolling back to a thirteen-year-old version of the Telltale engine that no longer exists!) The project grew to the point that it was much more than a patch, and the Sam & Max remasters were born.
What have you changed in the remasters?
The most obvious changes are technical. The games now support a 16:9 aspect ratio and the highest resolution your hardware allows. (The original Sam & Max Season One, released in 2006–2007, was 4:3 with a maximum resolution of 1024x768!) The remasters have dynamic lighting and improved lip sync. You can play with the original point & click mouse controls, or a keyboard, or a gamepad—whatever floats your boat. The audio, which was compressed like crazy to keep download sizes small, has been remastered and re-encoded from the original source files, with modern high-quality audio codecs.
But some of our favorite changes are brand new additions that bring the games closer than ever to the aesthetic and tone of Steve Purcell’s comics. All of the character models have been tweaked, including Sam and Max with Steve’s input. New menus and opening credits sequences make each season feel like one cohesive whole rather than separate episodes. Many scenes have been punched up with new acting and camerawork, and we created a couple of new exterior locations for establishing shots. Composer Jared Emerson-Johnson has even written new music, which is performed by some of the original musicians.
We also recast one voice actor (Bosco), and in the first season we made minor edits to a handful of lines. If you’re curious about that, there’s more info here.
I want to know more about what’s changed in the remasters.
Sure thing! Check out this Steam announcement, which goes into a ton of detail about Sam & Max Save the World.
And here’s another Steam post that lists out the big updates in Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space.
Okay, I’m sold. Where can I get the Sam & Max remasters?
Sam & Max Save the World is available on the Nintendo eShop, the Xbox Store, Steam, GOG, and PlayStation.
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space is available on the Nintendo eShop, the Xbox Store, Steam, GOG, and PlayStation.
Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse will release in 2024. Wishlist on Steam!
What languages are supported?
Sam & Max Save the World has English voice and subtitles in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and Russian.
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space has English voice and subtitles in English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian.
Can I stream these games? Can I make money off those streams?
Yes, you can, and thanks for asking. (But please note, we reserve the right to revoke that permission on a case by case basis.) You can also keep the music on during your stream—we won’t hit you with a DMCA notice!
I want to play the original games, not the remasters. Can I do that?
On PC, the original episodes are bundled with the remasters as free DLC. Past customers should also still have access through Steam, GOG, or the Telltale website, even though the originals are no longer for sale on these stores.
We're not able to bundle the originals as DLC on consoles, but you can still buy them on Xbox and PlayStation. (That said, not all of the seasons were released on both of these platforms in the first place.)
Due to insurmountable technical hurdles, these versions will not be updated and we can’t provide tech support. (Difficulty fixing bugs in the old game engine is a main reason we embarked on these remasters in the first place!) We’re making them available for historical preservation purposes only. That said, if you’re having trouble running the old episodes, check our troubleshooting guide, where we’ve collected everything we know about some common problems and suggest workarounds.
Who’s on the Sam & Max Remastered team?
The core team is Dan Connors (Telltale Games co-founder and former CEO), Randy Tudor (former lead programmer, and owner of the original powerful ’stache), Jon Sgro (former director of production technologies), and Jake Rodkin (former creative director). Telltale alumni Eric Parsons, Brett Rogstad, Tim Ingram, Emily Morganti, Shaun Finney, and Doug Tabacco are also involved, along with composer Jared Emerson-Johnson and sound designer Julian Kwasneski of Bay Area Sound. The only non-Telltalers on the team are Emma Cooper and Erin Ashe.
Did you also make Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual?
Nope, that’s Happy Giant. We’re Skunkape.
Oh, Skunkape! You mean the developer of DENIZEN?
No, that’s Skunkape Interactive. We’re Skunkape Games LLC.
Don’t you mean Skun-ka’pe Games LLC?
Silence, earthling.
