The Simpsons Are Taking Over Monopoly GO!

If you haven’t played the free mobile game, Monopoly GO!, you’ve been missing out on a fun and addicting experience that just keeps getting better and better. Now, fans of The Simpsons may be even more enticed to join the fun, with a new collaboration event taking place in the game.

It’s been 13 years since The Simpsons characters were seen in a dedicated mobile game experience, and they certainly aren’t afraid to go big with this one. From June 3 through July 29, The Simpsons is not just having a simple little crossover to appear in Monopoly GO!, but rather they are fully taking over the game with special narrative-driven Episodes, collectibles, and even an animated short that showcases the rivalry between Mr. Burns and Mr. Monopoly, written and produced by The Simpsons team, with Will Ferrell and Harry Shearer voicing the iconic billionaire rivals.

In anticipation of this exciting event, I recently got to speak with the amazing Joe Zanetti, the VP of Operations at Scopely, where he leads the team for Monopoly GO!. During our conversation, he explained what it was like working with the team of creatives at The Simpsons as well as a bit about what players can expect to see during the event.

Bringing The Simpsons To Monopoly GO!

Monopoly GO! is no stranger to having exciting crossover events with big names like Star Wars, Marvel, and even Hello Kitty. I asked Joe Zanetti about how the idea for The Simpsons was approached. The humor of both properties work so well together that it’s a natural fit. As Zanetti said, “as we started chatting, we were starting to really see areas of opportunity where this could be interesting.“

Between the bank heist and shutdown features in the game and all the cosmetics and collectibles that make Monopoly GO! so addictive, there’s a lot of room to work with bringing in The Simpsons jokes and Easter eggs.

The team at The Simpsons sounds like they were having a lot of fun thinking about it as well, as Zanetti said, “they were pushing us too because they were like, ‘we hope you’re not just doing the family, we wanna see deep cut Easter egg characters!’ And so that was something where we expanded what level of cosmetics we were going to be doing, you know?” Later he added, “we were going through deep cut characters that you don’t usually see… We have an homage to the monorail that’s in there. Mr. Sparkle is one that we’ve done. You know, so we’ve got really fun ones.“

This is the first collaboration that Monopoly GO! has done where they had a regular communication with the writers room at The Simpsons. “We had, like, back and forth on the jokes and where it’s like ‘hey, what are we doing with Chance cards? How can we make this a funnier meme?'”

Fans Of The Simpsons Who Are New To Monopoly GO! Will Love It As Much As Long-Time Players

Monopoly GO! is already a fun game, one that I personally have been playing for a long time, and having a crossover like this with The Simpsons is going to make it even more chaotic in a good way. As Zanetti says “we have places where, literally it’s a fully immersive table flip Simpsons takeover. Moments where we have flash events where you land on Free Parking and all of a sudden you’re in the Nuclear Power Plant and you’re dealing with Homer. That becomes almost like you’re entering a Simpsons game for a beat, and then we swing directly back into Monopoly.”

Additionally, every two weeks there are new mini-episodes unfolding within the game where original Simpsons-inspired storylines will play out. These include different things like a Homer-triggered nuclear meltdown to a disappearance inside Krustyland. Each of these mini-episodes will feature interconnected seasonal boards, collectible Episode Sticker Sets, themed mini-games, and short animated sequences.

Zanetti described it as, “We’ve got these great setup joke moments that also have mini games and the character drops that are supporting it. We’ll have our Homer theme, we’ve got our Marge theme, our Lisa theme, our Bart theme. So, we go through each of these and almost have sort of chapters kind of structure to what we’re doing this season.”

Don’t Worry Monopoly GO! Fans, The Simpsons Won’t Change The Game Too Much

After hearing Zanetti say that this collaboration is fun because they didn’t need to keep the different properties in their places, but rather, “This one was like, how can we mess these guys up together in the most interesting ways possible?” and about the table flipping that the takeover by The Simpsons will do, I wanted to make sure that long-time players of Monopoly GO! won’t feel it’s gotten too drastically different.

“We are doing fun, jokey art moments within it, but we’re not doing like a full mechanic overhaul. I would say, though, that when I was talking about some of those other features, we’re adding rather than adapting some of our standard tried and true minigames, I would say. So players who are familiar with Monopoly GO! who might not be as excited about Simpsons aren’t going to be like, ‘oh my gosh, this is all different.'”

Chibi Simpsons Characters In Monopoly GO! Are Adorable

In bringing the characters from The Simpsons into Monopoly GO!, the teams wanted to not only make the design fit with both worlds but be as adorable as possible. Zanetti said that, “when we got to that chibi style, that was one where both teams were like, yes, now you want to have all of those as like stuffies of every single one. That was something where we got to that alignment really fast.”

Unfortunately, that design has not been announced as having a physical merchandise line, although I would certainly buy them, but at least within Monopoly GO! players will be able to have plenty of collectibles to gather with these characters and art style.

The art style doesn’t just apply to characters, either. As Zanetti mentioned, “we were getting to just think ‘how can we create the bougiest Simpsons home and a bougie version of the Nuclear Power Plant? So, that’s where I think Simpsons fans will really get a kick when they see these things that are taking the essence of The Simpsons and doing this super billionaire version of different landmarks.”

In closing out the interview, I asked Joe Zanetti what he wants people to really know about the event, “The big thing for the readers is just, there was really a lot of love from both teams to make it as playful, mischievous, and wacky as it could be.”

The collaboration event between The Simpsons and Monopoly GO! will take place from June 3 to July 29, 2026.

Systems

Released

April 11, 2023

ESRB

E For Everyone

Developer(s)

Scopely

Publisher(s)

Scopely

Engine

Unity

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Franchise

Monopoly