A fan is remaking The Simpsons: Hit & Run as an open-world game just for the fun of it and it's actually staggering how good it looks already.
The Simpsons: Hit & Run is an iconic part of many people's childhoods, with fans having started petitions calling for a remake for years. Now, thanks to one developer and fellow fan named Reuben Ward, we could be getting even more than we bargained for.
The YouTuber, game engineer and Udemy instructor who specialises in Unreal Engine 5 released a video entitled "Remaking The Simpsons Hit and Run, But it's Open World - #1" on June 20 and it's already got over half a million views - and for good reason.
As you can see in the deep dive below, Ward explains how he took the assets from the original game and inserted them into UE5 software, alongside having to pretty much rebuild the nearly 20-year-old map from scratch. Needless to say, a lot of work is going into this passion project.
Not only has Ward stitched together the old map segments into one big open-world area but he's also upscaled the textures so they look closer to a those used in modern games. In addition, he's redesigned the vehicle physics using AI, built narrative and dialogue trees using a tool of his own design and even has plans on adding a multiplayer component - all by himself. Insane.
Ward's actually completed a remaster before to an equally admirable level of success, the only difference this time is the scale of his new project is much bigger than anything he's done before. He's essentially building a proper sandbox that players could potentially explore as if it were GTA,The Elder Scrolls or any number of other open-world games.
Combined this with all the other elements that he'll presumably detail in subsequent videos, we could genuinely see a newly remastered title produced for a whole new generation to enjoy when all is said and done.
As if an open-world Simpsons: Hit & Run remaster wasn't good enough, this bloke even took a crack at remaking Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in UE5 as well. Some serious talent going on here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYVEHk_KurY
