Fans are adapting 'Twin Peaks' into a PS1-style adventure game, and there's a demo

You may have watched the original run of Twin Peaks so many times that you exclaim “damn fine coffee” each and every time you grab a cup, but have you ever played the story through the eyes of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper? You’ll soon be able to do just that via the magic of video games. A small French developer called Blue Rose Team has been prepping Twin Peaks: Into the Night for a while now, and it just dropped a demo of the fan-made game.

The graphics are retro and decidedly PS1-flavored, which makes sense given how the show premiered in 1990. The gameplay looks to be full of exploration, complete with conversations with the town’s many oddball residents, though there’s a survival horror element reminiscent of the original Resident Evil titles. This is also an appropriate design choice, as the show pits Agent Cooper against foes both physical and supernatural. You should expect appearances from the infamous one-armed man, the chaos agent Bob, nefarious former FBI agent Windom Earle and, of course, plenty of owls.

Beyond gameplay, there looks to be an array of video cutscenes culled from the show itself. The demo, released Tuesday, chronicles events from season one, in which Cooper arrives in Twin Peaks and begins unraveling the murder case of local teen Laura Palmer. The demo is filled with the kind of idiosyncratic quirks and metaphysical horror elements that made the OG show such a hit back in the day.

The creators have announced that the game will be free when it launches, so that should clear up any potential legal hurdles moving forward. David Lynch is busy doing his daily weather reports on YouTube or whatever, so he won’t complain, but ABC and Warner Bros. aren’t quite as chill as the filmmaker/painter/meditation enthusiast.

There’s no official release date, but the demo should keep you busy for a while. Oddly, this will be the very first Twin Peaks video game adaptation, though there’s a short VR experience. Despite never being officially adapted, the show has inspired plenty of games, from the Alan Wake series to a little-known title called The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. It also goes without saying that Twin Peaks: Into the Night doesn’t delve into the events of Showtime’s Twin Peaks: The Return, so don’t expect to control Jim Belushi.