Key Takeaways
- Apu has returned to The Simpsons with actor Sunil Malhotra taking over the role, debuting in Treehouse of Horror Presents: The Revengening — removing the biggest hurdle to a Hit & Run remaster.
- Matt Groening told the audience at Disney’s D23 Expo in August 2026 that “the original game is coming back in some form,” before showrunner Matt Selman quickly added “or not” — fuelling intense fan speculation.
- Original developer Radical Entertainment has rebranded as New Radical Games in 2026, with a new website prominently featuring Hit & Run and focusing on classic game remasters.
- Hit & Run has never been made available digitally since its 2003 release on PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC — physical copies sell for $60–$100 on the secondary market today.
- Simpsons Movie 2, titled The New Simpsons Movie, is set for September 3, 2027 — creating strong commercial incentive for Disney to have a Hit & Run remaster in the window around it.
If you grew up playing The Simpsons: Hit & Run, you already know the game by heart — the missions, the Springfield layouts, the dialogue, Apu behind the counter at the Kwik-E-Mart. For more than two decades, fans have been asking for this game to come back in some form. Now, two things have happened in quick succession that make it feel more possible than it’s ever been.
First: Apu is back on The Simpsons, voiced by a new actor. Second: Matt Groening himself implied at D23 that Hit & Run is returning. Neither of these is a confirmed announcement — but put them together, and the pieces are aligning in a way they haven’t before.
Why Apu Was the Big Problem
For anyone who’s been following Hit & Run remaster discussions over the years, Apu was the elephant in the room. The character — originally voiced by Hank Azaria — was one of the game’s prominent characters, running the Kwik-E-Mart in Springfield and appearing throughout the story. But Azaria stepped away from the role several years ago following widespread criticism that his performance of an Indian-American character perpetuated harmful stereotypes.
After Azaria’s departure, Apu was essentially written out of the show — appearing in the background without speaking lines, or not appearing at all. For a Hit & Run remaster, that creates a genuine problem: do you recast the role and re-record Apu’s lines, keep Azaria’s original performance, cut Apu from the game, or wait until the show resolves the situation?
That wait appears to be over. Sunil Malhotra, an Indian-American actor, has debuted as Apu in Treehouse of Horror Presents: The Revengening — a new Simpsons special. The community response has been positive, with Malhotra’s casting seen as the responsible and long-overdue resolution that fans wanted: an Indian-American actor bringing the character back rather than letting him disappear entirely. It’s the same path the show took with Carl, who was similarly recast. Now Apu has a new voice, is back in the Simpsons universe, and there’s a clear path for Malhotra to take over the role in a remaster of Hit & Run if one gets made.
What Groening Said at D23
At Disney’s D23 Expo in August 2026, during a Simpsons panel, series creator Matt Groening was asked directly about Hit & Run. His response immediately went viral across the gaming community:
“I don’t know if I’m speaking out of turn — I think the original game is coming back in some form.”
Current showrunner Matt Selman, sitting beside him, immediately added: “Or not.”
The back-and-forth read to most observers as Groening having accidentally let something slip, followed by Selman doing rapid damage control. Groening’s phrasing — “the original game is coming back in some form” — points specifically at a remaster or remake rather than a sequel. He’d also previously told People Magazine in March 2026 that when it came to Hit & Run, he believes in the “never say never” approach.
Selman himself, for what it’s worth, was actually a writer on the original 2003 game. He hasn’t confirmed anything — but his “or not” denial didn’t exactly carry the weight of a firm dismissal either. On a Disney stage, at a Disney-run event, with the show’s creator saying the game is coming back, the reading that something is happening behind the scenes is hard to dismiss.
New Radical Games — The Original Developers Are Back
One of the most tangible signals in this story isn’t a quote — it’s a rebrand. The original developer of The Simpsons: Hit & Run was Radical Entertainment, a Vancouver-based studio. Earlier in 2026, many of the team’s original developers resurfaced under a new name: New Radical Games, with a public-facing website that prominently features Hit & Run and explicitly positions the studio around its ability to remaster classic games.
That is not a coincidence. Studios don’t build their brand identity around a specific game they have no involvement with. New Radical Games presenting Hit & Run front and center as it relaunches is a structural signal that carries more weight than any verbal tease. Whether they’re actively in development on a remaster or have been engaged in conversations with Disney about it, their re-emergence is the most credible evidence yet that something is genuinely in motion.
The Game That Never Left
Part of what makes Hit & Run such a unique case is that it genuinely hasn’t gone anywhere in terms of fan engagement. Released in 2003 on PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC, it never received a digital re-release, never came to any later-generation console, and has never been made officially available anywhere since physical copies stopped circulating. Despite that, used copies sell for $60 to $100 on the secondary market today — prices that reflect sustained demand, not nostalgia for something people have already moved on from.
The game outsold its competitors at launch, moved over three million copies, and was received as the definitive Simpsons game experience at a time when GTA was setting the template for open-world games. The developers themselves confirmed they had wanted to make multiple sequels — those plans never materialized, leaving Hit & Run as an only child and, in time, a kind of cult treasure.
Fan-made remaster projects have kept the community engaged in the years since. Multiple independent developers have attempted to rebuild Hit & Run’s visuals using modern engines, creating demos that show how naturally the game’s art style scales up to higher resolutions. That work has consistently gone viral whenever new footage is shared — a sustained reminder that the demand is real and that the game would translate well to a modern release with relatively modest updating.
Disney Has Every Reason to Make This Happen
The commercial logic for a Hit & Run remaster in 2026–2027 is compelling. Disney owns The Simpsons through Fox. The New Simpsons Movie is confirmed for September 3, 2027 — 20 years after the first Simpsons Movie. A Hit & Run remaster releasing alongside or ahead of that film would be a natural double-punch: gaming nostalgia feeding film excitement feeding game sales. Disney has shown it’s willing to lean on nostalgia with its other properties, and The Simpsons has one of the most beloved gaming tie-ins ever made just sitting there, inaccessible, with an audience clearly willing to pay for it.
The Apu situation was the one genuine obstacle that felt insurmountable while it remained unresolved. With GTA 6 launching November 19 on console and reigniting conversation around the GTA genre — the exact genre Hit & Run was built around — the timing for a remaster announcement feels sharper than ever. And now, with Sunil Malhotra giving Apu a new voice that the community has embraced, that obstacle is gone.
Nothing is confirmed. Groening’s comment at D23 was walked back in the same breath. But between the original developers reforming around the game, Groening’s slip on a Disney stage, Malhotra’s arrival as Apu, and the film sequel giving Disney a commercial reason to act — the stars haven’t aligned this well for a Hit & Run return in over two decades. Fans have been waiting a very long time. The finish line might actually be in sight.
