Gaming History You Should Know: Is Ghostbusters: The Video Game Canon? November 23, 2025

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you’re all eager to enjoy your upcoming Thanksgiving holiday weekend! We’ve been laying low here on the site for the last week or so, trying to catch up on all the new games that seem to be getting released every day for the past two months, with many more still to play. Welcome back to Gaming History You Should Know where we discuss some of the best independently produced documentaries on the history of video games.

I cannot tell you how difficult it was to be a fan of Ghostbusters throughout the early 00s up to the 2010s. It was the earliest fandom I remember becoming a part of, shortly after I was first exposed to the franchise watching some of the early episodes of The Real Ghostbusters. I thought the show was fascinating. Here was a group of scientists capable of fighting the monsters of every kid’s nightmares with incredible high tech weaponry. I got the action figures and the toy firehouse to go with it as an early 90s Christmas present. Eventually, my parents let me rent the original Ghostbusters film on VHS and I enjoyed it so much, and while I never had the chance to watch Ghostbusters II when it was in theaters, my sister and I eventually caught it when it premiered on premium cable. Since then I’ve collected the various home video releases and will rewatch them regularly.

But after Ghostbusters II came out, the franchise just…went to sleep. The animated show would later get replaced with newer programming. There was an incredible follow up to the animated series that came out in 1996 called Extreme Ghostbusters, which saw an older Egon lead a new diverse team of Generation X college-aged students though the problems of a late-90s New York City. Sadly, it only lasted half a year and its broadcast times conflicted with my school bus schedule, so I was only able to catch the first half of each episode before I’d have to leave for school. Such a shame, as despite the fact it was one of the best animated series of all time, not many people remember that show even existed, and I can’t think of a single school lecture of any worthwhile life value taught to me during that time in my life.

I will admit I never believed I would see a follow up to Ghostbusters II. Even in the earliest days of the net, there was a heavy demand for it, but most Ghostbusters news out from Hollywood at that time was merely based on theories and rumors. Then in 2009, we die-hard fans got our third Ghostbusters movie in the form of Ghostbusters: The Video Game. Written by the original film writers and starring the original cast, the game took place after the second film and showed the Ghostbusters battling it out alongside a new character, The Rookie, controlled by YOU, the player. It was a fantastic swan song that satiated this long-term fan quite well and still ranks among many “best of” lists

In the late 2010s, Sony remembered they owned a property people loved, and set forth with producing a film with the characters people loved. Ghostbusters: Afterlife and its follow-up, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire brought the franchise back to the big screen with the surviving cast battling alongside a next generation of young people interested in the paranormal.

But after the events of the latest two Ghostbusters films, many have questioned the existence of Ghostbusters: The Video Game remaining in the main film’s canon. While the events of the later two films cannot exist alongside the events of a show such as Extreme Ghostbusters, is the video game struck from canon just as easily?

YouTube creator Channeling Spirits focuses on Ghostbusters content of all kinds, and produced this well-researched documentary on if the story of the Video Game can exist in the wider existing Ghostbusters universe. Give it a watch and find out for yourselves!

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is out for PC, Xbox 360, PS3. It was remastered for PS4 and Xbox One.