Open the public domain (hell) gates
As you may already know, Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse is now part of the vast world known as public domain. What does that mean, you might ask? Well, anyone in the world can do anything with Mickey, but only with the classic black and white design from 1928. Want to have a movie like The Terminator with Steamboat Willie Mickey in the place of Arnold Schwarzenegger? You can do that. What about old-style Mickey in a Korean soap opera? Sure, go ahead. Oh, I know! What about Mickey Mouse in a horror game where he stalks players and looks more like Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th?
Yep, you can also do that.
It didn’t take long for the first horror game featuring Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse to be announced. Infestation: Origins is a co-op horror game where players need to fight “infestations” aboard different locations, like a… steamboat. Our favorite mouse in the world is the main antagonist, as Mickey becomes a bloodthirsty monster that tries his best to give players a Game Over screen. Poor Mickey. January hasn’t even come to an end and he was already brought to the horror genre.
Not the first time
It isn’t uncommon for classic characters to be brought to horror video games and movies. The latest example is Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a 2023 indie film with overwhelmingly negative reviews that had a budget of only 100 thousand dollars. You know what? This certainly didn’t matter for the creators, since the movie generated more than 5 million dollars in revenue, becoming a big financial success.
It seems like we, as humans, are always delighted to see classic characters being brought to other genres, especially horror. It’s like we are incredibly curious to see what can be done with them. I mean, Pooh or Mickey as monsters does sound crazy, but weirdly captivating. Movies and games like this don’t even need a lot of marketing, since the word of mouth is already very strong.
Nobody expects the new game Infestation: Origins to be a big hit, or even good, if I am being completely honest. There are hundreds of games like this one on Steam, where players flee from a big bad monster and complete a series of mini-objectives to destroy the antagonist or escape. The difference here? The monster is now Steamboat Willie Mickey. I bet that the creators expect that this little detail can carry the game on its back and generate huge news, much like this one that we are posting here.
You know what’s funny? People can now use the classic Mickey Mouse, but the image of Mickey driving the Steamboat is still copyrighted, so he basically can’t appear near wheels and the like. It’s weird how the world of trademarks works, that’s for sure.
For more information about Disney World and everything related to our friend Mickey Mouse, send us a message. We will plan your next trip to Disney so you can say hi to Mickey! Good-cute-Mickey, not Weird-Public-Domain-Mickey, we promise you.
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