Simpsons Hit & Run Remaster: 'Never Say Never'

Two things happened in the span of a few weeks: the studio behind The Simpsons: Hit & Run quietly relaunched under the name New Radical Entertainment, and now the show's own showrunner is on record saying a revival isn't off the table. Neither of those things alone would mean much. Together, they're worth paying attention to.

Speaking to People, Simpsons showrunner and longtime series writer Matt Selman gave fans the closest thing to encouragement they've heard in years. "Nothing is set in stone," he said. "But my quote about Hit & Run would be, 'Never say never.' Because we know people love it. We know they want it, so that's good. If we know people want it, never say never." Credit where it's due, that's a more direct acknowledgement of demand than most studios or IP holders ever bother to give.

Selman also reflected on how the game came together in the first place, and the story is genuinely interesting. He told People that when development started, the team had to fight the original developers just to let players get in and out of cars. Grand Theft Auto III had just launched, the direction was obvious, and the devs resisted it anyway. "They so did not want people to get in and out of the cars," Selman said. "So, that was a huge battle we had to fight. We luckily won that battle because it is fun to get in and out of the cars." That one design decision is basically why the game has a cult following at all.

For context: Hit & Run launched in 2003 on GameCube, PS2, Xbox, and PC, and has never been officially remastered or re-released on any modern platform. You can't buy it digitally. You can't stream it. If you want to play it today, you're hunting down a disc or running an emulator. For a game with this level of persistent demand, that's a strange situation to still be in over two decades later.

The New Radical Connection

The more interesting piece of context here is what happened at the end of February. New Radical Entertainment, described as essentially a revival of the original Hit & Run development team, relaunched with a stated focus on remastering classic titles. "This platform serves not just as a website, but as a nostalgic journey back to the roots of innovation and collaboration," the studio said in a statement. That's vague, but the timing alongside Selman's comments is hard to dismiss as coincidence.

To be fair, Selman is the showrunner on the TV series, not a games producer. He doesn't greenlight a remaster. The rights situation around a game like this involves Fox, the original developer, and whoever holds the publishing licence, and untangling all of that is exactly the kind of thing that keeps beloved games off modern storefronts for years. Selman himself called the situation "complicated." That word is doing a lot of work.

And honestly, the demand is real and has been for a long time. The game regularly surfaces on gaming subreddits as a benchmark for licensed games done right. Barry Keoghan named it as one of his favourites. There's a full Futurama total conversion mod built on its engine. People don't just remember this game fondly; they keep coming back to it.

What's different now is that the noise is coming from both sides at once. The people who made the game are back and talking about remasters. The people who own the IP are publicly saying they know fans want it. That's not an announcement. But it's more forward motion than this game has seen in twenty years.

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