Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Second Life

Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Recreation celebrated its 15-year anniversary on August 10, 2025. Under, we converse with the builders of the unique sport about the way it got here to be and its enduring legacy.

Belief an elder millennial on this one: The longer you reside, the extra you begin to see the media of your youth mirrored in a bizarre, recursive funhouse mirror. The outdated Grandpa Simpson “It’s going to occur to you!” meme isn’t just an ideal response to have right here, however an ideal instance. It is a well-known meme, born from a present that’s now principally recognized by youthful generations as an infinite meme manufacturing unit, from a scene that was directed at Gen-Xers with nostalgia for the Nineteen Seventies, by a personality lamenting how he was cool within the ’50s, and nostalgia for the ’40s being the precise supposed joke.

Scott Pilgrim now occupies a equally unusual place in popular culture. Again within the mid-2000s, the unique graphic novels have been to old-school video video games, anime, and Canadian indie bands what Kevin Smith’s worship of Star Wars and Marvel comics have been to Gen X. Loads of readers may latch onto the story of a nerdy slacker–the titular Scott–dating Ramona Flowers, a a lot cooler particular person with a checkered previous, and Scott having to reckon with mentioned checkered previous by preventing her seven evil exes. The emotional honesty injected into the story by its creator, Bryan Lee O’Malley made it attraction to the parents who could by no means have picked up a controller, the parents who merely noticed a particularly well-drawn, well-written fantastical slice-of-life indie e book. Scott nonetheless needed to take care of getting a job, paying his lease, and customarily having to develop into an grownup. He simply occurred to take action whereas chatting with nerds in a complete different secret language of nostalgic metaphors.

That is in the end the factor that made Edgar Wright in all probability the one affordable choose to deal with a movie adaptation. Wright had been talking the identical language by way of his work because the early 2000s with Spaced, Shaun of the Useless, and Sizzling Fuzz. This can be a man who staged a climactic argument between roommates on Spaced as a spherical of Tekken 3, had Queen’s Do not Cease Me Now because the backdrop for a zombie getting overwhelmed with pool cues, and used the traditional tropes of each zombie movies and massive Hollywood motion motion pictures to look at the entire thought of how males evolve throughout the world.

There’s an artwork to utilizing popular culture as shorthand. In Prepared Participant One writer Ernest Cline’s fingers, it is low cost and meaningless, as a result of it is the validation of obsession, somewhat than saying something in regards to the individuals obsessed. In Wright’s fingers, it is charming and efficient, as a result of it is utilizing popular culture to intensify the feelings which are already there.

And thus we received Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in theaters in 2010, a still-incredible piece of labor, not simply as a trustworthy adaptation of the novels, however a still-staggering achievement in audiovisual storytelling altogether. Its closest visible analogue is the Wachowski Sisters’ Pace Racer. You may in all probability depend every thing else in that individual echelon on one hand, and two of these slots are Spider-Verse motion pictures. Sadly, that is for good cause. Regardless of the unimaginable filmmaking, the zeitgeisty continuous comedy, a incredible indie rock soundtrack, the heartfelt story, a rock-solid vital reception, and a solid that might go on to develop into a number of the most acclaimed and acknowledged actors of a technology, the movie was truly a serious flop. It opened to a $10 million opening weekend and ended at $30 million, solely barely making again half its $60 million finances. It was useless on arrival. Seems, the movie has extra in frequent with the Wachowskis’ Pace Racer than the visible language. It was onerous promote to an unsavvy informal viewers unaccustomed to hyperkinetic maximalist storytelling. Common’s advertising and marketing division clearly felt the identical; the movie was offered as a musical with fights as a substitute of songs. It isn’t a unsuitable illustration of the movie, nevertheless it’s nonetheless tough to promote.

On the identical time Scott Pilgrim: The Film was floundering in theaters, in real-life Canada, Scott Pilgrim was preventing a unique struggle in a unique medium.

Jean-Francois Main is likely one of the co-founders of Tribute Video games, the parents behind a slew of old-school pixel artwork throwback titles reminiscent of Mercenary Kings, Panzer Paladin, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, and the upcoming Marvel Cosmic Invasion. However again in 2010, he was a part of a growth workforce at Ubisoft that determined to make the corporate take a giant threat.

“We principally targeted on Recreation Boy Advance titles: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Open Season, Star Wars, principally licensed video games,” Main mentioned, in a short interview with Gamespot over Zoom. “Sooner or later we came upon there was gonna be a film made on Scott Pilgrim. And we thought, why would not Ubisoft make a sport primarily based on the [intellectual property]. So we determined to make a pitch and get it cleared by way of Common. That was truly the final pixel artwork sport Ubisoft tackled. We stored it retro-looking, sort of a comply with as much as our Recreation Boy Advance video games.”

For reference, the larger video games that Ubisoft would launch round that point included Splinter Cell: Conviction, Murderer’s Creed Brotherhood, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, and Ubisoft’s first go-around with a sport primarily based on James Cameron’s Avatar. The closest factor to a retro sport in Ubisoft’s portfolio at the moment is a wholly forgettable TMNT: Turtles In Time remake. So how did Main and his workforce handle to slide a pixel artwork 2D sport into the corporate’s slate on the time?

“I do not know reply this politely,” Main mentioned with fun. “I feel it wasn’t actually a challenge that was absolutely understood at Ubisoft. Fortunately, they sort of allow us to do what we needed, and did not ask too many questions. They have been extra targeted on their greater titles. Ubisoft was shifting away from [pixel art games], and that was sort of our final go. Our entire workforce was despatched to work on extra AAA video games, and that wasn’t actually our ardour. It was why we ended up founding Tribute.” Bryan Lee O’Malley had comparable blended emotions, saying in our transient interview that “they did not actually give us the finances to do every thing we needed to do,” and famous that the ending touches for the sport have been in the end farmed out to Ubisoft’s Chinese language studio.

Nonetheless, because the movie was in manufacturing, Majors and his workforce set to work on what would develop into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Recreation, which was, certainly, a uncommon sight in 2010: a side-scrolling 2D beat-’em-up that felt extra like River Metropolis Ransom on NES or the unique Turtles In Time than the character-action titles of that second in time. The artwork style–which had Bryan Lee O’Malley dividing his time between engaged on the movie and offering unique art work embellished by famed pixel artist Paul Robertson–would take most of its cues from the unique graphic novels, whereas nonetheless recreating particular beats from the movie, together with a really cute pixel artwork model of Edgar Wright directing Lucas Lee’s film at Casa Loma. In return, pixel artwork Scott would get a cameo on the big-screen. The sport character appeared because the icon for Scott’s 1-Up after defeating the Katayanagi Twins, in addition to in a post-credit bit with Pixel Scott attending to throw just a few brick-busting punches, a shout-out that was an entire shock to Majors and his workforce.

The sport additionally had an additional ace within the gap with its superb, eclectic soundtrack from chiptune band Anamanaguchi.

“Our fashion was a pure match for the overall vibe,” mentioned lead songwriter Peter Berkman in an interview with PlayStation Blog again in 2021, “nevertheless it was a whole lot of enjoyable to flex and adapt for sure moments {that a} ‘band taking part in exhibits’ would not usually get to do. Like a bossa nova store theme, or boss songs.”

His co-writer, Ary Warnaar, agreed. “There have been a handful of prompts that took us out of our consolation zones,” Warnaar mentioned. “A few of these kinds have been positively only for the sport, however others began to form sounds that turned a bit extra regular to us. Dance-tempo 4 to the ground tracks have been a fairly new factor to us again then!”

The sport was at the least extra of a hit story than the movie, promoting practically 150,000 copies inside its first yr, according to research firm FADE. The issue there was that the success could be, sadly, short-lived. Licensing issues aren’t new for video games–even as a lot because the business loves its remakes and remasters, there are licensed video games throughout the expanse of the medium that will by no means see the sunshine of day ever once more due to both the associated fee or logistics of nailing down the IP. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was no completely different, and in 2014, the sport was delisted from the PlayStation Community and Xbox Stay Arcade due to an entire mess of licensing issues between Ubisoft, Common Photos, and ABKCO Music, who owned the rights to Anamanaguchi’s soundtrack.

“We did not have Restricted Run again then, or smaller bodily publishers to verify now we have a bodily copy that may be resold and stored alive,” mentioned Majors. “There was additionally no launch on Steam, that was additionally a difficulty.”

That would have been sport over by way of Scott Pilgrim’s full-court press into tradition at massive. However there was a proceed hooked up to that failure.

There’s a famous story Edgar Wright tells about discovering out the movie flopped on opening weekend: “Monday morning, [Universal’s chief of marketing] Michael Moses despatched an e mail with three phrases. It was one of many sweetest emails I’ve ever gotten from anyone within the business. It mentioned, ‘Years, not days.'”

That e mail needs to be nailed to the door, Martin Luther-style, of anybody daring to make artwork within the twenty first Century. Sure, smash hit, quick success is nice, particularly so far as the individuals who bankroll artwork lately are involved. However quick success is a flower. Lasting affect, legacy, and tradition are timber.

Regardless of the movie’s preliminary failure in theaters, it quickly turned a cult traditional within the making by way of phrase of mouth, with quite a few excessive profile creators singing its praises. The movie rapidly turned a midnight-movie mainstay at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly theater in Los Angeles. The house launch in 2011 was additionally a minor hit, managing to be the primary movie to knock Christopher Nolan’s Inception off the highest of the sales charts. Greater than that, the movie’s visible language–incorporating components from video video games, comics, and manga– begins changing into commonplace in media not lengthy after. That significantly exhibits in Edgar Wright’s personal work transferring ahead, with the effects-heavy manufacturing taking part in a giant affect in how he’d deal with results in The World’s Finish and enhancing round music in Child Driver. Finally, the movie cracked open a door that Marvel specifically would kick down solely within the years that adopted, leaning heavier on embracing the wilder and weirder elements of comedian e book storytelling, compromising much less in the direction of Hollywood conventions of four-quadrant blockbusters. The kinetic wall-of-visual-stimulation fashion of storytelling that nerds had been immersed in for years is now very a lot mainstream.

For the sport’s half, Scott Pilgrim was already driving a wave of nostalgia for 8- and 16-bit fashion aesthetics, and the sport’s eventual disappearance from storefronts solely drove its reputation additional. But in addition, whereas there had been occasional blips on the radar so far as old-school beat-’em-ups, Scott Pilgrim confirmed there was nonetheless loads of life within the style. Not lengthy after, titles like Double Dragon Neon, Dragon’s Crown, and Charlie Homicide joined the side-scrolling beat-’em-up roster, paving the best way for the true renaissance of the style when the likes of River Metropolis Ladies and Streets of Rage 4 hit the scene.

The story is, certainly, “years, not days.” In 2020, the movie’s reputation warranted an outright media blitz celebrating its fashionable traditional standing. The unique solid reunited in the course of the COVID pandemic to do a read-through of the complete script, solely emphasizing the now-accumulated star energy of its solid. The recognition of the stream–currently sitting at over 3 million views on Youtube. The movie received a high-profile theatrical re-release in 2021 simply earlier than a 4K Blu-Ray dropped. That very same yr, a miracle occurred: No matter licensing issues had been maintaining the sport off cabinets had been resolved, and it was re-released that January, with a bodily launch from Restricted Run promoting 25,000 copies within the first three hours after its announcement.

It might be straightforward to chalk all that as much as nostalgia changing into a cottage business on a scale even earlier generations may by no means think about. However one thing very completely different was occurring with Scott Pilgrim in these early days of the pandemic.

“I might moved on to different issues, however Scott Pilgrim retains calling me again,” mentioned O’Malley. “The fanbase simply retains rising. They’re getting youthful. I really feel like I owe them an increasing number of every year.”

That sense of accountability led to what ultimately turned Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. Besides the nostalgia is a bit of completely different right here. In 2010, Common promoted the Scott Pilgrim movie with a 4-minute short on Adult Swim, with Michael Cera, Mae Whitman, and Jason Schwartzman voicing a completely animated scene from the graphic novel. It was an ideal match on the identical community that quietly launched a technology to Naruto and Cowboy Bebop. It might additionally solely air as soon as, the night time earlier than the movie was launched.

In 2023, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off turned a 10-episode anime splashed throughout the entrance web page of the world’s largest streaming platform, sharing promo area with the absurdly standard Scrumptious In Dungeon, and an anime adaptation of Castlevania. In 2025, it is one of many first issues Netflix recommends after Okay-Pop Demon Hunters rolls credit. Scott Pilgrim is not a nostalgia journey; it is a part of the zeitgeist.

“You’d count on the viewers for Scott Pilgrim could be all 45-year-olds at this level,” O’Malley mentioned, “however I’ve an inflow of 15-year-olds coming to conventions lately, they usually do not see the references the identical method… They’re extra within the characters themselves, they usually’re the flashpoint, the factor they hook up with most.”

It is with that angle in thoughts that Scott Pilgrim Takes Off forges its personal path. The primary episode is the animated adaptation of the graphic novel everybody anticipated, proper up till the struggle with Ramona Flowers’ first Evil Ex, Matthew Patel. Scott fights him…and loses.

The remainder of the sequence then turns into Ramona Flowers’ story. Her guilt about “dabbling in being a bitch” costing a brand new companion his life guides the sequence into a really completely different path from the unique, a path that may solely come from 15 years of hindsight and maturity. Versus most performs for nostalgia, Scott Pilgrim hasn’t simply grown up with its viewers, however tailored to a altering world, whereas making certain that even the individuals who haven’t any attachment to the graphic novels or movie have an entry level.

That entry level seems to be one way more occupied with Ramona being fascinatingly messy, Scott being frozen in time, and the way pathetic that stagnation may be if left unchecked. Scott Pilgrim is not a mirrored image of the previous, however a dwelling examination of it. Because the present finally ends up proving, nostalgia may be good, however a model of an individual that is nonetheless open to vary and development is totally essentially the most wholesome model of that particular person.

That very same want for development and alter wound up main Jean Majors and the parents at Tribute Video games to the subsequent step in Scott and Ramona’s journey: Tribute Video games’ Scott Pilgrim EX.

“[Bryan and I] have been associates ever because the unique sport, and once we began Tribute we at all times stored involved,” Majors mentioned. “Over time, after Mercenary Kings, we’d attain out and ask if we may have a second stab. Issues did not pan out, however through the years, we stored harassing him. When the anime was introduced, we gave it one other go…and that is when the discussions turned extra critical.”

A easy sequel to the Scott Pilgrim sport could be a simple slam dunk in immediately’s market, given how profitable the re-release was and the ubiquity of retro beat-’em-ups lately, however that very same change and development that guided Scott Pilgrim Takes Off prolonged to the brand new sport.

“Once we first pitched Scott Pilgrim EX, we shared our imaginative and prescient of the target market, and Bryan informed us, ‘You must revisit these, I do not suppose that is completely correct,'” Majors mentioned. “We [initially] focused older [audiences], as a result of retro video games have a neater attain for individuals who lived by way of it, however that is not true. We observed with [TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge] that it reached this large viewers that was youthful, as a result of the individuals who grew up taking part in Turtles In Time wound up taking part in it with their youngsters. We have been lacking out on the youthful viewers who grew up with the sequence and film getting its second wind, and we noticed it with the path the animated sequence went. “

With that in thoughts, Majors mentioned, very similar to Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, EX will develop up a bit of extra. That particularly pertains to the place the problem for the brand new sport shall be coming from this time round.

“The manufacturing [on the original Scott Pilgrim game] was so quick we did not second-guess [the difficulty],” he mentioned. “We did some minor playtesting, however we in all probability ought to’ve executed a greater job ensuring it wasn’t too hardcore. One factor we’re bettering is listening to the suggestions from the unique sport, as a result of one of many issues they thought dragged the sport down was the grinding.”

“[Another thing] that may shock individuals is it is not a sequel, or perhaps a easy beat-’em-up both,” Majors continued. “We’re sort of ranging from scratch, desirous about construction the sport the best way we needed the unique to be. It isn’t as linear, it is extra open-ended, Hyperlink to the Previous-style. You must [explore the world] a bit extra to finish quests. We have adopted extra of a River Metropolis Ransom construction.”

For his half, Bryan Lee O’Malley remains to be closely concerned with EX.

“I simply wanna make a online game,” he mentioned, laughing. “Simply, one thing new that jogs my memory of all of the video games I performed rising up.”

Not that there is something unsuitable with that in any respect. However O’Malley is greater than conscious of the trip Scott Pilgrim has gone on, from a bit of black-and-white indie comedian born of nostalgia and a love of the video games, motion pictures, and bands of his youth, to a longtime favourite for a number of generations of nerds and weirdos who’ve grown up and out over time–a fond reminiscence born of fond reminiscences.

“In the event that they’re 20 now, they have been born across the time all this was beginning, once I was obsessive about the late ’70s, early ’80s,” he mentioned. “I really feel like each technology has that ’20 years behind you’ nostalgia, ‘What was the world like earlier than the one I used to be born into?’ To them, Scott Pilgrim’s develop into this type of rosetta stone. It is a map to an older model of popular culture.”