Blade Runner 2099 Trailer: Welcome To A World Ruled By Relicants

“Blade Runner” had a (probably) human Blade Runner. “Blade Runner 2049” had a replicant Blade Runner. Now, upcoming Prime Video series “Blade Runner 2099” will feature a new twist: a human pretending to be a replicant. 

Cora (Hunter Schafer) is playing a risky game by posing as a replicant Blade Runner. 50 years after the events of the last movie, the tables have turned. A war between humans and replicants ended with replicants winning and taking over the world. This outcome might be good for the world (thanks to their experience terraforming the off-world colonies, the replicants can undo the environmental damage suffocating the planet), but it’s not so good for humans. Especially the rogue humans who are now being hunted by replicant Blade Runners.

A new trailer for “Blade Runner 2099” dropped during the show’s Saturday panel New York Comic-Con 2026, and it shows replicants struggling with an identity crisis in the wake of their victory. Do they want to become more human? Do they want to become “more human than human”? Or do they want to become gods?

In what is easily the most memorable line from the original “Blade Runner,” replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) recounts some of the remarkable sights he’s seen in his brief lifetime, and laments that, with his death, “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” 

80 years after the events of that movie, replicants are no longer restricted to the four-year lifespan of the Nexus-6 models. But they don’t live forever, and they live with the curse of not only knowing that they will die, but knowing precisely when. Michelle Yeoh’s character, a Blade Runner called Olwen, is in the last week of her life. In an interview published by IGN ahead of the show’s NYCC panel, showrunner Silka Luisa explained what it means for a replicant to face their mortality:

“Blade Runner has always been about mortality. Part of the human experience is dying and it’s inevitable, and replicants know exactly when they’re going to die, which in some ways makes it even harder because it’s sooner than it should be. And that knowledge, I don’t know if we’re meant to have that. Can you ever stop fighting the desire to want to be here and to see how the story continues? That felt very fundamental.”

Both this quote and the trailer — which mentions a “cure” for replicants — suggest that “Blade Runner 2099” may center on replicants searching for a way to rid themselves of their expiry dates and become immortal. Which might be the most human desire of all.

All eight episodes of “Blade Runner 2099” will drop on Prime Video on November 25, 2026.