Howie Day was working on a South Park game for Ubisoft that was based on The Simpsons: Hit and Run, but it never saw the light of day.
Between 1998 and 2000, Acclaim released South Park, South Park: Chef’s Luv Shack and South Park Rally in quick succession. But the next South Park game, a tower defence title for Xbox Live Arcade, wouldn’t come out until 2009.
In this gap between releases, it seems that Ubisoft was working on an unreleased South Park title that was based around the gameplay of The Simpsons: Hit and Run, which itself borrowed heavily from the Grand Theft Auto games. Ubisoft brought in Buzz Monkey Software, a small Oregon-based studio, to create the game. Howie Day was a senior artist at Buzz Monkey at the time, and in a Twitter post, he recalled his experience on the South Park title in response to a tweet encouraging game developers to share ‘bad ideas’ they’ve had to work on.
“Spent a year and a half in the mid 2000s making a South Park game for Ubisoft that they didn’t have the license for – based entirely around the idea of doing “Simpsons: Hit and Run” + “30%”. 30% of… what? We were never told. Matt and Trey *hated* it.”
Spent a year and a half in the mid 2000s making a South Park game for Ubisoft that they didn't have the license for – based entirely around the idea of doing "Simpsons: Hit and Run" + "30%". 30% of… what? We were never told. Matt and Trey *hated* it. https://t.co/iUNyej6yqM
— Howie Day (@howieeday) April 26, 2023
South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have spoken out before about how disappointed they were with the early crop of South Park games, which led to them refusing to license any more titles unless they had direct involvement in creating the game themselves. Subsequently, they were heavily involved in the making of South Park: The Stick of Truth in 2014, which was developed by Obsidian and published by Ubisoft.
But clearly Ubisoft’s earlier attempt at making a South Park title based on The Simpsons: Hit and Run didn’t impress Matt and Trey. You can see footage from the unreleased South Park GTA clone and find out more about the story behind it in this video from DidYouKnowGaming.
