The Simpsons: Hit & Run is one of the most simply entertaining games on the sixth generation of consoles. In fact, it’s so well-loved that one fan even remade the entire game in Unreal Engine. If the fact that The Simpsons: Hit & Run sequel never came to fruition is confusing to you, that’s reasonable: the devs don’t get it either.

In an interview with MinnMax yesterday, several members of the development team for The Simpsons: Hit & Run got together to talk about the game’s development. The entire interview is an hour long, but MinnMax cut out a three-minute clip where the devs discuss why the game didn’t get a follow-up.

In the interview, Executive Producer John Melchior explains exactly how the sequel became dead in the water:

Melchior: The biggest crime was that [Vivendi Games] did not obtain The Simpsons license when they had an offer in. So, The Simpsons came back with an offer for five games for X amount of dollars. It was a really good deal, and Vivendi said no. AFTER the success of Hit & Run.

Ben Hanson (MinnMax): And what was the logic there?

Melchior: I don’t know. They did Cold Winter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer…. And to everybody’s credit here, the sequel was like, we had airships, we had trains, we had lots to go on The Simpsons. This was going to be a franchise, no doubt in anybody’s mind…. But yeah, it was sad because we had a ton of momentum. There was no momentum loss between the shipping of this game and the work being done on the sequel.

Melchior also discussed how the production team felt about the decision:

It was a five-game deal for less than I think Vivendi paid for the first game. Like, really cheap because they were really happy. I remember getting that all like, ‘Yeah, we decided to pass.’ I’m like, ‘Pass on what game?’ They’re like ‘The Simpsons license.’ I remember Steve Bersch… he was our boss at Fox… he was like, ‘I don’t understand. I gave it to you on a silver platter. Why aren’t you just saying yes and doing these games?’ It was a really bizarre decision. I’ll never understand it. Most people on the production level never understood it.

Perhaps if there’s enough fans pushing for it, we might get a sequel someday. For now, however, it looks like The Simpsons: Hit & Run sequel is lost to time.

If you’d like to watch the clip yourself, you can do so below:

You can check out the entire interview over on MinnMax’s YouTube channel.