Earlier this week, the Twitter account Out of Context 20th Century Fox announced that Disney had surprisingly decided to release the soundtrack to The Simpsons Hit & Run on streaming sites including Apple Music and Spotify (as spotted by VGC).
This obviously got a lot of people excited about the possibility of a remake of the popular 2003 action-adventure game based on The Simpsons license, but reaching out to two of its composers Marc Baril and Jeff Tymoschuk, it seems they are just as in the dark as the rest of us over any future plans.
Speaking to Time Extension, Tymoschuk told us:
"I hadn't been contacted about the streaming release, I sort of stumbled onto it by accident, someone had posted about it on Twitter. It was a cool surprise though!
"As for a remaster/remake, I really have no idea. I was only barely involved in the original, Marc Baril (the main composer of the game) had asked me to contribute three tracks to the game which I did from my home studio, so I didn't have much contact with the team working on it."
As we mentioned, we also spoke to Baril. He also seems to have no idea about any future news regarding the game. In fact, he wasn't even aware of the streaming release, until we contacted him over LinkedIn. Responding to our message, he told us:
"[It's] all news to me! It's hitting its 20th anniversary so there's always some nostalgia at those milestones. I have heard of a fan made version in Unreal a few years ago if I'm not mistaken."
The fan remake he's talking about is the work of a YouTuber named Reubs, who has set out to rebuild the game in Unreal Engine 5 with amazing results. As for anything official, though, it looks like your guess is as good as theirs. Tymoschuk did say, however, that he'd be glad to see a remake:
"It's been really surprising and nice to see how much love there still is for a 20-year-old game, and so if there's enough interest out there, then who knows? Stranger things have happened. I'd buy it! Besides, my son has just discovered The Simpsons in the past month or so, so if a remake happened, I'd score some cool points around the house."
Originally released back in 2003, The Simpsons Hit & Run was an open-world sandbox game in the style of Grand Theft Auto III, but set in The Simpsons' hometown of Springfield. It let you explore the town, complete missions, and unlock vehicles and costumes from the show's history. The developer of the game was Radical Entertainment, with Vivendi Universal Games being responsible for the publishing of the title.