Like many video game adaptations of TV shows, the Futurama game felt more like a tribute to its fans than a truly polished game. While the platforming wasn’t amazing, it was decent enough to enjoy, but the main appeal was getting to play a brand new story with Fry, Bender, and Leela. Released after Futurama ended on Fox, the game surprisingly offered a pretty exciting adventure for the beloved characters.
Unlike many video game adaptations of cartoons like The Simpsons Game or South Park: The Stick of Truth, this game provides a definitive ending for the characters – and it’s not a happy one. Because the TV show concluded during the game’s development, Futurama‘s final adventure was almost guaranteed to have a tragic outcome for its heroes.
How Futurama Got A Video Game
The Futurama video game, released for PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2003, was a fun extension of the beloved sci-fi comedy. Interestingly, if considered part of the show’s official storyline, the game’s ending would have been surprisingly dark. A version for the Nintendo GameCube was planned, but canceled due to lower sales expectations for that console. While the gameplay itself was fairly typical for a 3D platformer, the game benefited greatly from the involvement of the original Futurama team. Series co-creator Matt Groening oversaw the game’s development, and his fellow creator, David X. Cohen, directed the voice actors – including Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, and David Herman – who reprised their roles for the title.
The script for the game was written by J. Stewart Burns, a writer for Futurama, and the music was composed by Christopher Tyng, who also worked on the show. Though development began while Futurama was still airing, the game wasn’t released until after the series ended. While the gameplay itself wasn’t particularly memorable, the story and overall style perfectly captured the show’s tone, especially its knack for taking classic sci-fi ideas and twisting them into dark humor.
What Happened In Futurama’s “Lost Episode”
The game’s story played out like a full episode of the show. It centers around Professor Farnsworth, who surprisingly sells Planet Express to his long-time rival, Mom. This deal secretly gives Mom control of half of Earth, making her the planet’s ruler. The game then follows Fry, Bender, Leela, and Dr. Zoidberg as they try to escape Mom’s grasp and travel through time to undo her actions. To make the game’s difficult and dangerous challenges easier to handle, players are introduced to Professor Farnsworth’s Re-animator – a device that instantly brings characters back to life if they are defeated.
Even as characters traveled through both new and recognizable environments, they were always brought back to life by the Re-animator. When escaping Mom proves difficult, and the crew finds themselves briefly stuck on the sun, they encounter the Professor’s former teacher, Adoy, who has built a time machine. They use it to travel back and prevent Farnsworth from selling the company, but this destroys the Re-animator, seemingly at the cost of their lives. However, a final joke reveals that Farnsworth is still tricked into selling, meaning the entire game happened within a never-ending time loop.
This Could Have Been Futurama’s Final Adventure
Even though Futurama quickly gained a dedicated fanbase and won an Emmy, its initial run on Fox struggled with low ratings. This led to its cancellation in 2003 after four seasons. Many fans felt a video game released around that time served as an unofficial series finale, and a particularly sad one. The game’s story trapped the show’s characters in a repeating time loop, where they were either forced to live under the control of the main villain or repeatedly died trying to stop him.
The show ended with a fittingly futuristic conclusion, though it could have easily left the characters in a very dark place. Fortunately, Futurama found new life on cable and continued with a series of direct-to-video movies, followed by revivals on Comedy Central and then Hulu. Fans can now see the complete “lost episode” thanks to footage collected for the home video release of Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs. It’s a good thing it did come back, because otherwise that surprisingly downbeat ending would have been the last we ever saw of Futurama.
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2026-01-01 00:15