The Simpsons Hit and Run Designer Wants to See a Remake

The Simpsons: Hit & Run lead game designer Joe McGinn has thrown support behind the idea of remaking the beloved "GTA for kids."

"I would love to see it," McGinn told GamesRadar about a potential remake of the open-world sandbox game. He certainly isn't alone in his thinking as he told the outlet that Hit & Run is "still the highest-rated Simpsons game ever made, according to Metacritic."

The 2003 video game was a critical and commercial success, with players praising the game for its "brilliant use" of the license and its parodical take on Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto franchise. (According to McGinn, the game was pitched to the publisher as "GTA for kids.")

Hit & Run was unique as it featured a fully-realized digital Springfield for the first time ever, with many of the show's iconic locations and characters dotted across its different "districts" (levels) for players to explore while also participating in various story-based missions.

You can still play Hit & Run thanks to some handy emulators that allow for modern controllers, but that hasn't stopped fans from calling for a remake with a modern interpretation of Springfield, especially since the animated series now has over 740 episodes to draw from.

Those calls, however, might remain unanswered as Simpsons writer Matt Selman previously explained to IGN that he "would love to see a remastered version of [Simpsons Hit & Run]," but it would be "a complicated corporate octopus to try to make that happen."

The game's original developer, Radical Entertainment, and publisher, Vivendi Universal Games, have both shut their doors and it's unclear who now has the game rights for The Simpsons franchise, so fan-made remakes might be the closest we ever get to a true modern remaster.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.