Vicarious Visions, the studio behind Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Tony Hawks' Pro Skater 1 + 2 — both excellent remakes — has today been merged into the Blizzard side of Activision Blizzard. From this point forward, the developer will be "fully dedicated to existing Blizzard games and initiatives". This means that it'll no longer operate as a lead studio within the organisation.
A representative told GamesIndustry: "After collaborating with Vicarious Visions for some time and developing a great relationship, Blizzard realized there was an opportunity for [Vicarious Visions] to provide long-term support."
It's perhaps a bit of a shame considering the quality of the studio's aforementioned remakes, but here's hoping that the team can help bolster Blizzard's output. After all, the company has a lot of on its hands right now, with both Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 currently in development.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 34
Well, back in the day being merged into Blizzard might have been good.
But now I just read Blizzard as Activision and it makes my stomach drop.
Blizzard, what happened to you? Don’t let this studio die with you!
...sigh... another talented dev relegated to obscurity...
I wondering if their remaking Diablo 2 that's been rumoured for a while.
R.I.P Vicarious Visions
@AdamNovice It sounds like they're going to be more of a 'support' team, but that's still an interesting angle.
Absolutely disgraceful. A company on the up and up, cut down far too soon. Bloody hell.
@Gaming365247 yep that was my thought as well
Just like the OG Tony Hawk dev team Neversoft who are stuck making CoD maps for eternity.
What an absolutely moronic decision !! They've done so much good work with their remakes these last few years, i really thought they would get into a pattern of flipping between new Crash and Spyro games with Toys For Bob going forward, talking of which, i hope they are safe from this happening to them too.
yall are fools for not buying their games...
wait...
checks game library
Awful news. I also live not too far from where the company is based and know a few people who have worked there. Will be interested to get their opinions on how bad this is.
What a shame. What a damn shame.
Oh that sucks. But they are a studio who's efforts have been remaking other studios games.
Well, this totally sucks 🙄
@OrigamiCrane They’re more a company that people have problems with on a corporate level than on the games front. They have pretty dodgy ties to Tencent too which has bit them on the arse on occasion.
@OrigamiCrane well, to be honest they are great game makers and world and story crafters. But they sold their soul to the Activision corporate suits and now their image is tainted by dodgy business practices and a focus on making money rather than being creative or serving the fan base.
Even some of their newer games, such as Overwatch, are really good games. Not bogged down with micro transactions or anything, just a solid shooter with likeable and creative characters and it’s really good.
But Activision has done things to limit free speech, despite Blizzard always advocating for freedom of expression, and making decisions that are hypocritical to this cause in order to make business deals in China. They’ve churned out content just for the sake of it and screwed over their loyal community for a quick buck.
Take World of Warcraft, a game I no longer play, they now lock content behind grind walls for no reason other than trying to stretch out content and make people log in every day. They’ve moved away from providing quality content for a great user experience to just see customers as money machines (that’s how it feels at least).
Most just wish Blizzard was independent from Activision so they would just experiment with games and do their own thing (like they used to) rather than bow down to the corporate suits.
Blizzard used to be the gamers like us who played their games and geeked out at things. Now they feel far from that.
(Also, nice name. My wife and I are on Season 3 of Prison Break at the moment)
Shame about Vicarious Visions, it's a logo that's popped up in my games for almost 2 decades with ports (probably called remakes/demakes these days) of Tony hawk's on game boy and DS, guitar hero on Wii, crash bandicoot on game boy, spider man on game boy. All excellent games so it's sad to say goodbye
So no THPS3+4 remake. Damn you Activision.
What a terrible decision by Activision. Vicarious Visions have been on an outstanding run of form.
Generally speaking, no one likes getting caught up in a Blizzard.
I’d ship my girlfriend and cats over to Blizzard if it meant I got to play Diablo 4 a bit quicker
That's disappointing. Vicarious Visions had been releasing quality content with their recent remakes.
@OrigamiCrane ActiBlizz already owned them, Activision bought them in 2005 and then later merged with Blizzard. So it’s not like they didn’t make great games while owned by a mega corporation. It’s just a baffling decision to turn them into a support dev team when they did such great work in recent years on their own projects.
RIP Vicarious Visions. Must be coming up to bonus time for Activision execs....🙄 Reminds me of when High Moon Studios met the same fate despite their efforts & passion with their Transformers games back in the ps3 era!
Blizzard themselves are a mere ghost of the "gamers" company they once were.
Christ, as soon as I started to think Activision was moving in the right direction they do some dumb ***** like this.
@OrigamiCrane I dunno, I seem to recall the Crash trilogy and Tony Hawk remakes doing pretty well! Who even knows to be honest but it’s a real shame. I was really looking forward to seeing where they went with Tony Hawk next.
Hope crash & spyro aren't going to go back to being dormant IP's
What a great way to reward your employees for successful work!
@Would_you_kindly I think they will both continue, just with Toys for Bob being the lead developer for both (maybe Beenox since they did CTR).
@AdamNovice According to Schreier, they are indeed working on a Diablo II remake.
@kyleforrester87 NOT YOUR CATS?!?
Vicarious Visions has way too much talent to be reduced to a 'support' studio, goddamn it Activision.
@OrigamiCrane - Except Crash Bandicoot N-SANE Trilogy did sell very well, Activision themselves even said it surpassed their expectations, and the Tony Hawk Remakes landed on NPD multiple times in a row, which is usually a good sign that it sold well.
Blizzard didn't like the idea that VV where getting better publicity and had a better rep than them. Kiss goodbye to any new classic remakes from now on that AB own the IPs for, I bet you'll soon see them laid off or leave for other pastures the VV people who have moved to Blizz. Based on AB cutting jobs because they didn't make enough cash for Koticks personally bank account and the old saying goes last in first out
Exactly why you shouldn’t support Activision. Or EA. They devour studios and shutter them for arbitrary reasons. This happens constantly.
The only way to send a message it’s not acceptable is to boycott their releases.
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