In an interview with Minnmax, Executive Producer John Melchior, who was responsible at the time, looked back on “The Simpsons: Hit & Run”. In the course of the conversation, among other things, it was revealed why a successor and an offshoot were never realized in the Middle Ages.
To this day, “Hit & Run,” developed by Radical Entertainment and released for consoles and PC in the summer of 2003, is one of the most popular video games about the yellow chaos family from Springfield.
After various leading minds have been behind the classic in the past for a remaster, the executive producer responsible at the time, John Melchior, gave us an interesting look behind the scenes in an interview with Minnmax. As Melchior explained, two new titles based on The Simpsons were in the concept phase at the time: a successor to “Hit & Run” and an adventure that took the yellow family into the Middle Ages.
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The end for both projects came when the publisher Vivendi, who was responsible at the time, decided to reject a deal for five new Simpsons games.
“Simpsons: Hit & Run 2 would have been developed by Radical. “There was also a medieval Simpsons game that Matt Groening introduced and that would have been created after The Lord of the Rings at Stormfront,” Melchior added.
Melchior criticizes Vivendi’s decision
“The biggest crime was Vivendi not securing the Simpsons license even though they had an offer. The Simpsons came back with an offer, five games for X dollars. That was a really good deal. And Vivendi simply said no after the success of Hit & Run,” added Melchior.
Asked why Vivendi refused the license, he replied: “I don’t know. They made games like Cold Winter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And to everyone’s credit, the sequel had airships. We had airplanes. There was a lot to do on The Simpsons. This was supposed to be a franchise. Nobody doubted that.”
Some time later, US publisher Electronic Arts came on the scene and secured the license for $80 million, according to Melchior. The result was “The Simpsons – The Game”, which was released in 2007 for the PlayStation consoles, among others.
Further reports on the topic:
“It was sad,” Melchior continued. “Because I think we had a lot of momentum back then. There was no loss of momentum between the release of this game and the work on the sequel.”
Further reports on The Simpsons, The Simpsons: Hit & Run.
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