Love it or loathe it, Call of Duty is a juggernaut that’s quickly gobbling up all of Activision’s resources in order to sustain itself. You may have read recently about the Call of Duty: Warzone event, which saw the original Verdansk map nuked and replaced with an 80s alternative. That was designed to coincide with a new season of content, and of course blueprints are being added all the time.
Now another subsidiary, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time developer Toys for Bob, has been enlisted to help out. The studio has been deployed specifically on Warzone, as confirmed by a Twitter post by the team. Unfortunately, the group has also suffered a round of layoffs, with a number of former staffers posting that they were let go.
There has been speculation that the next Call of Duty game, scheduled to release on PlayStation 5 and PS4 later this year, is not in a good place. While the rumours stem from social media “insiders”, the suggestion is that Activision already has a recovery roadmap in place because it’s not expecting the title to launch smoothly. Obviously, the pandemic will have seriously impacted its plans.
Whether the decision to deploy Toys for Bob on Warzone is related to these leaks is unclear, but practically all of Activision’s studios are now working on the first-person franchise. As much as we’re impressed by Call of Duty’s post-release support, there’s an argument on this evidence that what it’s doing may not be practical for much longer.
[source twitter.com, via twitter.com, eurogamer.net]
Comments 34
Truly disgusting. First Vicarious Visions and now Toys for Bob. Both studios put out great games and then treated like this.
A waste of talented developers. If I didn't hate Activision already, I sure as hell do now.
Serves them right. Don't sell out to Activision.
Hopefully this hurts Activision in the end. Between them letting Vicarious Visions be absorbed by Blizzard and now this with Toys for Bob, im pretty much done with Activision.
This doesn't bode well for the future of the Crash nor Spyro franchises which is a real pity.
This is just sad really
Was only a matter of time before the superb Activision remakes of the last few years were shown to be a fluke rather than a change in direction.
Appalling, bad for gamers, bad for the developers and a big negative mark on the stinky AAAA market gaming is turning out to be more and more.
(On a postive note, Thank god for Sony taking what seems like a genuine risk with Returnal lately)
This is my fear pretty much any time a developer is absorbed by a bigger company.
Breaking up the Crash Bandicoot devs, and then using the remaining stragglers as a support team for a new Call of Duty game is pretty much the ultimate insult, IMO.
Damn, is COD WWII: Vanguard such a disaster?
If you play call of duty and buy skins for your pow pow guns and your angry at this.... you are angry at yourself. Same as EA all they want are easy easy bucks. Stop being stupid and say no to the nonsense.
@DonJorginho tbh I think your reply is more relevant to itself and you than the one you quoted. Bizarre behaviour
@DonJorginho @orson @Stocksy Let's all be cool, no need to get worked up on a Friday afternoon.
I think this pretty much confirms that Crash, Spyro and maybe Tony Hawk are all going to be on hiatus again and we probably won't get any new entires for a long time now (if at all).
Activision is fu**ed if call of duty become irrelevant. Sony should hire the people that’s activision fired to remake either ps1-ps3 ratchet and clank games, ape escape, or others old sony ip.
Welp guess Crash is going back into the grave again. That's a real shame because for a while there Activision was actually putting out good quality games that aren't the usual COD or Blizzard suspects with stuff like Sekiro, Tony Hawk, Crash and Spyro.
And stuff like this is why I really can't stand live service games. Not only are they generally just not interesting to play, but they also suck up resources that could be better used elsewhere. Truly sad to see.
Sad times. Guess the Crash and Spyro IPs are going into the dark again.
@Arugula Was Crash Bandicoot such a sales disaster then? But i do think Activision Blizzard is a problem. A great studio absolved to bring us more of the same....
Just like Burnout and Dead Space at EA wasting away in a vault somewhere.
Slow clap for good ol Bobby Kotik. Terrible decision by activision. In Tony Hawk, Spyro and Crash they were doing a stellar job at transforming their reputation. This is just sad. Particularly so soon after absorbing Vicarious Visions into Blizzard.
So is safe to assume Crash 4 sales did not satisfied Activision execs, being bought by Activision or EA really is a death sentence.
@Stocksy that's really cool! I didn't ask though.
@ShogunRok Oh I'm not worked up mate! I'm happy to finally play some Returnal once I'm home from work! Just hate the way certain people are revelling in this news is all.
We vote with our wallets and Activision is only reacting to the gamers voice, which is overwhelming saying Year after year that we care more about CoD than any of their other franchises
I don't think it's necessarily that Crash 4 didn't sell well (although I wouldn't be surprised at the price point), but it's just COD is on a completely other level to almost every other game series now. It brings in more money than the others so those at the top will turn to it. It's *****, but that's our world
That's disappointing. It was nice to have got Crash and Spyro remakes recently, so it'll be a shame to see Activision focus solely on COD.
But Crash 4 was amazing. What an absolute waste.
The fact that they managed to still have annual COD despite the pandemic is pretty terrifying.
I can't imagine the conditions devs will probably have had to put up with in the last year.
My Activision account got hacked and my personal information was compromised. I had to file a BBB complaint for them to even respond to me at all, but all they did was ask me questions and then never responded to my answers. Got shadow ip banned across several games for something that wasn’t my fault. And thankfully I found out about it quick before the person that hacked me could do much damage. They don’t care about their customers at all.
Given all the news they’ve had, it doesn’t seem they care about their employees at all either. I really hope Toys for Bob can pull a Bungie and sever their ties with Activision. They’ve proved with Crash 4 that they’re a fantastic developer beyond making great remakes. They don’t deserve Warzone duty.
The studio will henceforth be named guns for price
I really want Sony to buy the crash & spyro IP's from activision & not just let them stay dormant for ages
@Rob_230 Remember High Moon back in the ps3/360 era with those Transformers games? Not perfect,but clearly made by fans of the old school Gen 1 Transformers era!
Never bought the remasters on ps4 being rather shoddy & pricey as I recall.🤔
Ultimately if Activision can't sandwich live service mtx into something they're really aren't interested in it!
Last Activision games I'd bought were the Crash Team Racing & Diablo 3,& they were mostly for the single player modes! Gutted Blizzard never finished the D3 story!
Making Devs do something they have no interest or experience in has proven to be a fatal error time after time. EA have shown this repeatedly.
It's crazy to think that Bobby Kotick sees himself as the "Luke Skywalker" of the gaming industry.
Some were speculating they were already working on a true Spyro 4, so if this is the case I hope Beenox are put on to finish it. I've never purchased a single CoD game, anyway, but I can easily extend that to any Acti published title until a new Spyro comes out. Good luck with the cash cows, but there's only so long you can steer the boat with the same old Shelly dressed up in different wigs and sexier underwear.
Stop releasing call of duty games on a yearly basis.
Better yet. People need to stop buying games from Activision.
Wasn't last year's CoD also in a rough spot? I heard it was outright cancelled and Cold War was moved forward a year in schedule. This annual live service model isn't very efficient.
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