Epic Mickey man Warren Spector—also known for other games you may have heard of, like Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Deus Ex—recently took to LinkedIn to share some thoughts about Disney’s upcoming Oswald the Lucky Rabbit miniseries, which was showcased by Jon Favreau at the recent D23 event. Spector said he’s “seriously looking forward to it,” but he’s also a little annoyed by what he sees as the erasure of the game that helped bring the character back into the public consciousness.
Favreau provided a brief overview of Oswald’s creation in the 1920s during his presentation, relating how creator Walt Disney lost the rights to the character shortly thereafter. While numerous Oswald shorts were produced, the character was utterly overshadowed by Disney’s subsequent creation, Mickey Mouse, and languished in obscurity for years. Disney reacquired the rights to Oswald in 2006, and “we’ve seen him pop up in games and in shorts and things” since then, Favreau said—and, well, that’s the extent of it.
That didn’t sit right with Spector, who made Oswald a major NPC in Epic Mickey, and a playable character in Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. “I’m seriously looking forward to it but it seems as if people are looking at it as the debut of the character,” Spector wrote. “Call me small-minded but that ain’t right.
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“In the Epic Mickey game—released in 2010—the team at Junction Point featured Oswald in his first Disney role since 1928. Two years later, in Epic Mickey: The Power of Two, we gave him a voice (thanks to the incredible talent of Frank Welker). That was the first time he ever spoke in a Disney story. And just to put a cherry on top, we gave Ortensia her name, her voice, her personality and her role as Oswald’s paramour. None of that dates back to Disney.”
Spector admitted he’s “a little bitter about the lack of credit the team gets” for all the work they put into bringing such a foundational character back into the public eye. But his real concern is simply ensuring the record remains accurate.
“I was blown away that Disney trusted us and saw fit to reintroduce the little guy in a game,” he wrote. “But the team did a great job and deserves to be recognized for it before Hollywood makes people forget the games ever existed.”
One of the challenges facing Spector here is that the Epic Mickey games were, well, forgettable, despite some striking concept art. The original was a Nintendo Wii exclusive that posted middling reviews and sales alike; it didn’t come to PC and other platforms until the Rebrushed Edition in 2024, which holds “very positive” reviews on Steam—perhaps in part because of the presence of Deus Ex DNA that writer Jeremy Peel detected in it. 2012’s Epic Mickey 2 sold even fewer copies than the first game, though, and Junction Point was closed just a couple months after its release.
None of which invalidates Spector’s point: Junction Point pulled Oswald out of the past and gave the character a depth and distinctiveness it never had when it was merely a Mickey precursor. It deserves credit for doing so, and hopefully as the Oswald series comes closer to fruition—it’s set to debut sometime in 2027—Disney will make an effort to ensure Junction Point gets it.
