We Could’ve Had A Disney Fighting Game 20 Years Ago

10 Comments | disney, video games | By Peter Paltridge | September 2, 2026 | 2 minutes of reading

In the closing credits of Disney+’s Rescue Rangers movie, there’s a billboard for a Smash Bros type game starring the entire Disney Afternoon lineup. Some people asked why we didn’t have such a game, if not for just the Disney Afternoon than Disney as a whole. Turns out the company briefly considered it way before the Rescue Rangers movie was ever made.

Ken Christiansen, a former concept artist for Disney Interactive, revealed he was often assigned to whip up concept art for proposed games. This art was used in giant presentations to convince bigwigs to sign off on their production. Sometime in the 2000s several games were considered, among them a one-on-one fighter starring Disney’s more ferocious characters.

The Smash tradition for pulling deep cuts would have been continued here. Christiansen illustrated the Beast fighting Captain Hook, the Sheriff of Nottingham fighting King Louie, Ursula fighting John Silver, and the Queen of Hearts fighting the Horned King. John Silver is from the ill-fated 2002 Disney movie Treasure Planet, and the Horned King comes from one of their biggest bombs, 1985’s The Black Cauldron.

Christiansen told the website Time Extension that the title of this proposed game would have been “Disney’s Action Figure Face-Off.” Note that the context of Smash is that it is figures of Nintendo characters coming to life, and that was also the concept here. He says Disney was not open to crossovers between any of their worlds whatsoever, and really had to be convinced to allow Kingdom Hearts to happen. But once it did and it was a hit, they started playing around with other concepts.

“Over my four years at Disney, I worked on so many concepts that never happened,” said Christiansen. “I think that if there was a movie or a TV show, I probably carried it through, like Treasure Planet, Atlantis, Peter Pan 2, or Kim Possible — those games got money — or Pixar stuff like Buzz Lightyear and Monsters, Inc. But there was so much discussion about, ‘What do we do with all these properties that we have?’ So there’s a lot of concept stuff for things that made it out.”

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San Goku

Member

711 messages 3 likes

#1 Sep 03, 2026

The idea of a Disney Afternoon fighting game is pretty wild! I mean, imagining characters like Darkwing Duck and Baloo going head-to-head sounds like a childhood dream come true. But at the same time, I can't help but feel a little skeptical, could they really balance all those characters and capture the fun of the originals? It would definitely have been a challenge!

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Bruno

You Don't talk about!

1,058 messages 32 likes

#2 Sep 08, 2026

man this hurts so much to read. imagine growing up in 2000s and getting Disney characters fighting like Smash Bros, that would be my whole childhood right there. Beast vs Captain Hook sounds insane in the best way. I really think Disney just did not understand what they had back then, they were too scared of mixing their worlds together. Kingdom Hearts proved people want this stuff so bad but they still moved so slow. Now everything is nostalgia bait and remakes, we could have had something actually creative and fun. This concept art alone looks better than half the mobile games Disney puts out now. Real shame it died in a meeting room somewhere.

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Fillio1999

New Member

263 messages 30 likes

#3 Sep 09, 2026

Horned King fighting Queen of Hearts is such a deep pull, most people dont even remember Black Cauldron exists lol. Respect to whoever picked these matchups.

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Kyo

Member

301 messages 9 likes

#4 Sep 09, 2026

Honestly not surprised Disney passed on this. They are way too protective of their brand identity, letting villains punch each other probably felt too risky for family image reasons back then. Nintendo has always been more relaxed about crossovers so Smash worked naturally for them.

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Sure Your Ken

She took the kids Ryu

348 messages 14 likes

#5 Sep 09, 2026

This is exactly why Nintendo wins with Smash and Disney just sits on gold. They have hundred of characters and only used like ten of them properly. Concept art looks clean tho, whoever drew Ursula vs John Silver deserves a raise even after all these years.

im just imagining the commercial for this in early 2000s, kids losing their minds. we got a rescue rangers movie easter egg instead of the real game, thats actually kind of sad if you think about it

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akumaX

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36 messages 0 likes

#6 Sep 09, 2026

I work adjacent to game dev and this story is so common, you would be shocked how many cool projects die because company politics get involved before the fun stuff even starts. Concept artists pour hours into ideas that executives kill in one meeting without even playing anything. Disney specifically has always struggled with letting their universes touch each other, and it took Kingdom Hearts succeeding for anyone upstairs to loosen up even a little. Sad part is by the time they warmed up to it, gaming trends already moved on to something else. This kind of stuff makes me appreciate leaked concept art way more now, at least we get to see what almost was, even if it never left the drawing board.

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Psychedelic_Morty

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263 messages 4 likes

#7 Sep 09, 2026

I would have bought this day one no question. Disney villains fighting each other sounds way more fun than another princess mobile game. The art style already looks close to what a real game could look like, especially the muscle and pose work on Beast. Feels like they had something special and just let it rot in storage somewhere.

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Eugenio

Member

347 messages 25 likes

#8 Sep 09, 2026

Reading this just makes me sad honestly. Disney had every piece needed for a great fighting game and they just sat on it for years because of internal fear. Meanwhile Nintendo built an entire franchise around the same basic idea and it became one of the biggest fighting games ever made. I get that Disney has to protect their image carefully since kids are a huge part of their audience, but there was clearly a way to do this tastefully. The concept art alone proves the artists understood the assignment completely. Action Figure Face Off is actually a decent name too, simple and marketable. This whole story feels like a missed opportunity that we will never fully get back, especially now that the industry has changed so much since then.

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Merchant

Hello Strangah!

261 messages 4 likes

#9 Sep 09, 2026

I would have loved to see this game happen. Disney had so many characters that could work in a fighting game, especially if they were willing to use characters outside the usual Mickey and princess lineup. Beast vs Captain Hook already sounds like a fun matchup. I also like that the concept artists were thinking about characters like the Horned King and John Silver instead of only using the most famous characters. It makes me wonder how big the roster could have become if Disney actually approved it. The Kingdom Hearts part is also interesting because Disney was apparently very protective about mixing its worlds. Looking back now, it feels strange because Disney crossovers are everywhere. I really think this could have found an audience if they had released it around the same time as other crossover fighting games.

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