GREENSBORO, N.C. — Fans of the Backyard Sports video game franchise — which debuted for the first time back in 1997 — received a massive surprise Tuesday morning as company Playground Productions announced its plans to relaunch the series.
Backyard Sports creator and Playground Productions CEO Lindsay Barnett also said the franchise is looking to expand into other mediums such as film and television.
“I look at media as the largest classroom in the world,” Barnett said in the statement. “As such, our goal is to produce meaningful content that not only entertains but also educates and inspires.”
The first game of the Backyard Sports series, Backyard Baseball, arrived back in 1997 and introduced thousands of kids to its iconic cast of original characters. In the years since, names like Pablo Sanchez, Keisha Phillips and Pete Wheeler have become cultural touchstones for people who were children in the late 90s and early 2000s.
As part of the announcement, Playground Production also released a 45-second video showing some of the original cast of characters playing baseball together.
The Backyard Sports franchise, which was originally developed by Humongous Entertainment and published by Atari, eventually expanded into new sports with titles like “Backyard Basketball,” “Backyard Soccer,” and “Backyard Football.” Along with a cast of lovable original characters, some entries in the series also saw kid versions of real professional athletes — like Jerry Rice and Kevin Garnett — join the roster.
Backyard Sports last released a new video game in 2015, when it dropped new versions of Backyard Baseball and Backyard Basketball.
