Fans of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game rejoiced as Ubisoft announced the ‘Complete Edition’ of the game in honor of its 10-year anniversary, but the original creator of Scott Pilgrim was apparently not aware of the re-release until recently. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World has amassed a large cult following that has desperately begged for a re-release of the game, and its wish has been in the works for quite some time.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game Complete Edition was announced yesterday during the second Ubisoft Forward event. The game has not been available to purchase for the last six years as it was only made available on the Xbox 360 and PS3 but was removed from all digital storefronts in 2014. Since then, the creator of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Bryan O’Malley, and fans have been very vocal about wanting the game to make its return. In August, O’Malley had tweeted several times about Scott Pilgrim’s 10-year anniversary and how he would be surprised if the game was ever re-released.
According to email correspondence between Kotaku and O’Malley, Ubisoft had not reached out to O’Malley about the game’s re-release until after his tweets in August. He also went on to reference a tweet that Ubisoft had made in response to his original tweets by stating that “months ago when Ubi tweeted that emoji at me, that was because their PR people thought I knew about it.” He concluded by stating that he nor any of the original creators of the game were working on the complete edition.
“I guess they (Ubisoft) had been working on it for a while, and people at Universal were supposed to be telling me about it, but there was a communication breakdown. So months ago when Ubi tweeted that emoji at me, that was because their PR people thought I knew about it and was being a tease. As far as I know it’ll be on all the major consoles. I think a physical release of some sort will happen but deals are still being finalized. At this point I honestly have very little involvement, other than being a figurehead for the fans. It’s just a historical rerelease of the same game. None of the original creators are working on the rerelease. I don’t make money off the videogame (I never did), but maybe if I’m good they’ll give me some download codes.”
In August, O’Malley also tweeted that it would be messed up if Ubisoft was working on a re-release without any of the original creators. This is probably the tweet that caused Ubisoft to reach out since O’Malley tweeted a couple of days later that Ubisoft had been in contact with him. And it is in fact “messed up” that the creator of the I.P. the game is based on was not involved in the re-release that he and his fans so desperately pleaded for. It is also alarming that O’Malley won’t (and never has) made money from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, but that’s for another time.
Regardless, it seems that O’Malley and others who worked on the game originally are happy with Ubisoft’s decision to give Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game a second life on all current-gen consoles. The re-release is also a historic event as it will be the first time in six years that the game has been available to purchase. It would have been nice if O’Malley had been informed at the start of the project, but in the end, all is right in the world and Scott Pilgrim lives on to fight another evil ex-boyfriend.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game Complete Edition arrives for Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One in Holiday 2020.