The Fortnite x South Park collab has me yearning for a canceled GTA-inspired game from 2005

Fortnite's mini-season featuring The Simpsons was a big highlight in November 2025 for me. I would watch the animated show in the UK during the late 1990s, thanks to a double-feature on the BBC2 channel on Fridays. Seeing the Fortnite map transform into Springfield only spoke to my nostalgia further, having played the battle-royale game since 2020.

Seeing the Power Plant, Kwik-E-Mart, and many more locations throughout November was fantastic. Combined with the cel-shade effect, it was one of Fortnite's best collabs. I was also a fan of South Park back in the day – albeit not as much as The Simpsons – but seeing Cartmanland appear in Fortnite, known as Born in Chaos, was another treat to behold.

But it's not as vast as the Simpsons collab. Here, it's simply a theme park, some skins, and some objectives to complete. No bosses to face, no other locations to visit, it's a far cry from November's mini-season. But I can't help but feel that Born in Chaos can set the stage for a new game, which can also be inspired by a GTA-based South Park title that was canceled in 2005.

Screw you, GTA

Details are sparse after 20 years, but an open-world South Park game was once in early development by a team at Ubisoft. Playing as Cartman, you could roam around South Park and hijack vehicles while completing missions. There were also plans for a split-screen multiplayer mode complete with racing, cops and robbers, and snowball fights.

Think Simpsons: Hit and Run, but South Park, and you're about there. I remember hearing about this through magazines around 2005, but nothing else ever came of it. I was disappointed to say the least. I had enjoyed Hit and Run so much in 2003, so I mourned the loss of seeing Ubisoft take on the same thing with South Park twist.

Nevertheless, there's still plenty from the canceled title that the Fortnite x South Park collab could mine from. Racing against one another as cops and robbers, offering a unique take on snowball fights, and many other zany gamified situations could make for some great callbacks to certain episodes. But it's building on what could have made this canceled game work so well, if it appeared back in 2005.

Having a big chunk of the Fortnite map as South Park, complete with vehicles to use and locations like Stark's Pond, the Bus Stop, and Jimbo's Guns, could be great for fans to visit, complete with NPCs from the show that players can talk to. And, of course, if Fortnite could track the number of times Kenny (rather, a Kenny skin) gets eliminated in one match, it could also be a great attribute to supercharge the crossover. All put together, it feels like Comedy Central has so much it can use for Fortnite – but that's not all.

A Bus Stop for new audiences

The latest South Park game, Snow Day, could have been better. Released in 2024, the action-adventure title simply felt dull to play and didn't reflect the fun I had with previous South Park games. It's also yet another reason why the canceled open-world title should be revived.

With GTA 6 looming, and no sign of a Simpsons Hit and Run 2 sequel anytime soon, it feels like the perfect time to see an open-world South Park game for modern consoles, complete with online multiplayer. Fortnite's collaboration with The Simpsons has shown the building blocks of how an open-world game can work. If we won't be seeing Homer run around in 4K on my Switch 2, let's see South Park take on the mantle instead.

Canceled games can occur because of budget, engine restrictions, or a lack of appetite. I'd argue that South Park wouldn't have an issue with any of these three factors in 2026 – fans, including myself, would love to run around South Park, throw snowballs, and meet with friends there.

We're in an age where so many games function as part-time jobs rather than being played for fun, which are able to be picked up and left alone for a certain time. South Park can be that game to cut through the seriousness, to be a laid-back comedy game like High on Life 2 or The Stanley Parable. If the Fortnite x South Park collab stops at Cartmanland, let's see the revival of the 2005 canceled game and escape into the snow elsewhere.

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