Bruce Campell is going to reprise his role as Ash Williams in an upcoming Evil Dead video game despite claiming that he was done with the character.
“Oh no no, that’s different,” said Campbell in an interview with Bloody Disgusting regarding his apparent decision to retire from playing Ash. “I have previous obligations I have to fulfill. They are doing a video game. A whole immersive kind of dealio. I’ll be Ash for that, because I wouldn’t want someone else’s voice hamming it up.”
We don’t know much about the Evil Dead video game that Campbell is referring to – as Bloody Disgusting points out, there are reasons to believe it might be a virtual reality game – but the fact that Campbell is committed to playing Ash in the game makes it that much more interesting. Given that Campbell seemingly stand by his decision to not play Ash on-screen again, these games could very well be the last time that we see him portray his most famous characters.
Of course, you should never say never when it comes to these kinds of things. There’s always the possibility that Campbell will decide to take the Ash role for one more spin if the right opportunity comes along.
In case you’re wondering, there have been other Evil Dead video games in the past. The reason you probably don’t remember them is that most of them were awful, awful, awful. The PlayStation’s Evil Dead: Hail to the King was a particularly bad Resident Evil rip-off, while Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick and Evil Dead: Regeneration were slightly more passable action games based on the Evil Dead films.
Here’s hoping that this new venture will finally deliver an Evil Dead game worthy of the films and series.