Inside the 'Breaking Bad' Video Game That Never Released

It has been more than three years since the Breaking Bad universe delivered a new chapter. The 2019 Netflix sequel El Camino and the 2022 finale of Better Call Saul marked the end of Vince Gilligan’s story. For a time, however, there were efforts to create a more immersive way to experience that universe again.

The VR Experience That Almost Let You Cook With Walter White

According to new findings from gaming platform MP1st, it was revealed that Firesprite, a first-party Sony studio known for PlayStation VR titles such as The Persistence and Horizon Call of the Mountain, spent several years developing a Breaking Bad virtual reality experience for the original PlayStation VR. The project was not intended to be a full length game, instead it was conceived as a narrative experience built around the series’ most recognizable settings. Players would have been able to navigate locations such as Walter White’s backyard, the New Mexico desert, and presumably the inside of the iconic RV where a lot of the show took place.

What Sony Hoped VR Could Learn From Breaking Bad

Variety had first reported on the collaboration with Gilligan back in 2017. The filmmaker revealed he was working with Sony Interactive Entertainment on a virtual reality project, though the studio involved was not confirmed at the time. Andrew House, global chief executive of Sony Interactive Entertainment at the time, was enthusiastic about the project.

“We set up a day at our campus where we brought seven of the best show runners [Sony Pictures Television] work with, like David Shore of ‘The Blacklist’ and Ron Moore, who did ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ Vince and some other folks,” the executive said. “And they just played around with VR. Several of them were intrigued, but Vince was the one who said, ‘I really want to do something with this. I want to experiment with this.'”

From VR to Grand Theft Auto: Other Canceled Breaking Bad Games

Five years later, Gilligan discussed the project on the Breaking Bad podcast Inside the Gilliverse, saying that a lot of work had been done before it was scrapped. He also mentioned other video game attempts to revive the franchise, including a Grand Theft Auto-style version and a mobile game. He revealed that Better Call Saul screenwriter and producer Jenn Carroll “put a lot of energy and a lot of effort and a lot of talent into writing three or four different stories for different video games including the VR thing.”

“The way fans love the shows makes us very proud, it makes me be very cognizant of keeping the brand to as high a level as we could keep it. So if you’re gonna do a video game you can’t just do the E.T. Atari video game version, you gotta make it great,” he added. “We don’t have enough bandwidth usually to make it work, I wouldn’t hold your breath on a video game.”

The project appears to have been cancelled a year after the initial announcement was made. Since then, Firesprite faced a round of layoffs that led to the shelving of several other projects.

According to House, Sony was hoping to push virtual reality to audiences with similar big collaborations. As the Sony executive put it in 2017, “I think [this] could be another interesting way to see how VR can drive towards the mainstream.” Unfortunately, despite the demand, it appears that a Breaking Bad video game is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.