After Family Guy released their third-person shooter game Back to the Multiverse, and South Park continue to develop their long-impending RPG The Stick of Truth, it has been hinted by The Simpsons showrunner Al Jean that the longest-running animated comedy could be the latest in the genre to make a comeback in the home console gaming industry, hinting that a role-playing game (RPG) based on the show has ‘already been considered’.
Having a history in video gaming that spans 26 original titles and fresh off the back of the recent ‘Krustyland‘ expansion to iOS/Android city-builder The Simpsons: Tapped Out, the Fox series has aside from Tapped Out cooled off on video game production (in spite of a lucrative licencing agreement with EA Games), but Jean has suggested that new titles could be on the way soon.
Speaking in a ‘Google Hangout’ interview, he said of the possibility: “We’ve talked about it, I think there will be.”
When asked about the chances of an RPG being one of those titles, he added: “Yeah, we’ve talked about it. It’s a really complicated thing to do, especially because you have to like, you know, write a number of possibilities for each occurrence. But, we’ve been [doing video games for] so long. I mean, the first game was an arcade game. So there’s been unbelievable history to the video games that have come off the show. And we’re a ride [at Universal Studios], which is amazing. So I think that kind of thing is not going to stop. In fact, it will just increase.”
Having been notable in the past week for their deal with Lego (in which the Danish toy-makers will release The Simpsons-themed sets), the show is still able to flex its marketing muscles heading into its 25th season creatively, but will a future video game (in particular an RPG) be more on the ‘critically-acclaimed creative title’ side of reviews, or a licenced ‘cash cow’ of a game? Only time (and the quality of a game, and generated income) will tell…
