Yes, you read that headline right, the classic racing adventure that captured the peak hilarity of the legendary Simpsons TV series may have a remaster in the works. The culture that has sprung up around these remakes is pretty strong as of late, adding some credence to the idea. I still remember playing through this iconic game on the PS2, and it being one of my favorite games on the platform, largely thanks to how well the humor of that era of the show had been captured.
The Simpsons: Hit & Run is an action-adventure video game developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Vivendi Universal Games. and it originally released in 2003 on the GameCube, Xbox and PS2. Players would journey through a a series of different levels including Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Apu, all while collecting collectibles and undertaking quests, which often tied into plotlines from the show. The game was the ideal experience for any long-time fan, and captured quite a bit of inspiration and lots of free time in the following years.
And Vlad Ceraldi, the original producer on the game, thinks that this experience deserves another shot. In an interview with LadBible, Vlad Ceraldi expressed his belief that the game would be a great fit for all manner of platforms as a remake or remaster. As he said in an interview, when asked about the prospect of a remaster, “When you make something, sometimes you know you’ve made something special. This was one of the ones that we knew we hit the mark. We didn’t know it was going to sell as well as it did – we had high hopes, but it definitely hit its expectations.”
Ceraldi spoke honestly in that same interview about how popular the title was, recalling one particular story that excited him and cemented the idea that Vivendi had something unique. He said: “I remember interviewing somebody for one of our games – they didn’t know that I worked on The Simpsons: Hit & Run. They were going on about one of their favourite games of all time and ended up saying at the end that it was The Simpsons: Hit & Run.”
So since they have something so unique, buoyed by 16 years of nostalgia, it would definitely be a good thing to tap into if a developer picks up the project. It could be that Hothead Games, where Ceraldi is head of development, could pick up the project. Although it’s important to stress that there is no project at this time. He also admits that things won’t be easy, but that there’s plenty of passion of drive to build something wonderful, something that feels worthy of the original game. So if you’re a fan of the first version of the game, keep your eye on this one.
