Summary
For gamers of a certain age,The Simpsons: Hit & Runis the stuff of legend. The 2003 video game by Radical Entertainment can best be described as the children’s version ofGrand Theft Auto,except it involved The Simpsons, and wasn’t rated M by the ESRB.
Over two decades later,fans of the game have been clamoring for a re-release, remaster, remake or even a sequel to the cult classic — whichever is the most feasible. But as it turns out, fans of The Simpsons were robbed of not one, but three sequels back in the early 2000s.
We wish we were joking.
Be Right Back, Going To Go Cry
As first spotted by GamesRadar, Joe McGinn, the lead designer of the game, randomly appeared in the YouTube comments of a video dedicated to speedruns of Hit & Run.
While McGinn initially commented to share his appreciation for the video, particularly as the team didn’t know “about a single one of these optimizations during development,” he eventually divulged some unknown facts about the game.
According to McGinn, Gracie Films, the long-running production company dedicated to The Simpsons, offered the publisher, Vivendi, a deal to produce three sequels. Oh, and it would’ve cost Radical Entertainment and Vivendi zero dollars in licensing fees. Unfortunately, that didn’t come to pass.
The reason?
“Some crazy person at the publisher - we never found out who - said no.”
As of this writing,McGinn has not divulged what exactly a sequel would have entailed, though he did note that “out-of-car gameplay would be better” had the sequel come to fruition. All we can do is imagine how awesome a series of games within The Simpsons world would’ve been, particularly as McGinn affirmed that the whole team were massive fans of the show.
“We never imagined it would still be bringing some people happiness 20 years later!” he said in a separate comment. Indeed, over 20 years later, The Simpsons Hit & Run is more than just a nostalgic title, it was a bonafide classic.
