Poker Night 2 is a poker video game developed by Telltale Games. It is the third poker game developed by the studio, following Telltale Texas Hold'em and Poker Night at the Inventory. Like the original Poker Night, the game features licensed characters from various media.
Sam and Max return from the first game and are the only characters to do so. In contrast to the original game, which had Max as a tournament opponent and Sam only making a brief cameo, Sam appears as a full-fledged tournament opponent, with Max making a smaller appearance as his assistant. The game also features Claptrap from the Borderlands video game series, Ash Williams from the Evil Dead film series (particularly based on Army of Darkness), and Brock Samson from The Venture Bros. animated series as tournament opponents. GLaDOS from the Portal video game series appears as a table dealer.
Interestingly, Sam and Max's designs are somewhat altered compared to their appearances in both the Telltale Sam & Max games and their appearances in the original Poker Night. Sam's face has been slightly modified, and his clothing is now black, while Max has also had his nose recolored to be black.
Due to expired licenses, Poker Night 2 was delisted from all digital stores on September 2018, thus the game can no longer be purchased.
Trivia[]
- If you have the Sam & Max theme completely activated, at one point, the rest of the characters will sing the lost original theme song from Sam & Max Hit the Road.
- Sam came to be included as a tournament opponent by the developers of the game leaving a spot on the table open for a character from a Telltale Games series. They had first considered using Marty McFly or Doctor Brown from the Back to the Future film series, which had recently been adapted into an adventure game series by Telltale Games, but realized their presence would not be appropriate in a game with mature elements. Similarly, characters from Telltale's The Walking Dead video game series were also passed on due to the emotional tone of the series.
- This is the only game featuring the Sam & Max characters to be rated M by the ESRB. Other games featuring the characters are either rated T or are unrated.
- This was the last video game featuring the Sam & Max characters to be developed by Telltale Games, as Telltale engaged a "majority studio closure" on September 21, 2018, and was completely defunct on October 11 of that same year. However, much of the former Telltale staff that had worked on the Sam & Max games would later form Skunkape Games to develop remasters of Telltale's Sam & Max trilogy.
- Poker Night 2 and its predecessor are the only completed games featuring the Sam & Max characters to no longer be available for purchase, presumably due to the licenses of the other series featured in the game expiring. Coincidentally, Poker Night 2 was delisted merely eight days before the closure of Telltale Games began.
- This would be Sam and Max's last appearance in a video game in general until the release of the remaster of Sam & Max Save the World seven years later on December 2, 2020; though Sam & Max: This Time It's Virtual was announced before the remaster, it was released after the remaster.
- One of the in-game recurring conversations that may randomly occur involves Sam describing a highly detailed adventure he has with Max involving giant penguins from the land of Zyzobia, with it progressing off-screen between games. Mike Stemmle revealed in a post on the TellTale forums in May 2013 that this is, in fact, the plot summary for the infamously cancelled game Sam & Max: Freelance Police, with the name "Zyzobia" used in place of the actual game's location of "Subarctica."[1]
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- ↑ Comment by Mike Stemmle about Zyzobia in Poker Night 2, in May 2013.