Crash Trilogy, Tony Hawk Remake Dev Now Officially Merged with Blizzard

What a gigantic waste of talent.

Such a waste. If I was working for VV, I’d be looking for a new job, who the hell would want to be folded into an environment like that?

A real shame. I've personally never seen the appeal of Blizzard games even before all the controversy around them but Vicarious had plenty of potential. You hate to see it.

RIP to a great team. So many other IPs they could have spruced up for us!

More worried for the future of Crash & Spyro, I get the feeling they're going to end up back in hibernation again (But this time they'll remain there permanently), and if the Activision/Microsoft deal goes through, I'll be even more concerned for the future of Crash & Spyro if Banjo Kazooie, Conker & Voodoo Vince are anything to go off of, especially since Activision & Microsoft's focus going forward will more than than likely be on the IP's that generate consistent revenue, like Call of Duty, Overwatch, Candy Crush and other Blizzard titles.

Here's a question regarding Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, who owns that IP? Is that Activision or FromSoftware? I know Activision published Sekiro, but who currently retains the rights to the IP?

At this point, there's absolutely nothing I care about from Activision going forward.

Microsoft can keep their games, for all I care.

@JustPlainLoco I believe FromSoftware owns the rights to Sekiro as an IP. Activision literally just a publishing partner.

Is it still a super grind to get to Level 100 in THPS 1+2?

@ShogunRok - That's what I thought, I just remember that when the news dropped that MS were acquiring Activision / Blizzard, there was an image of all the games they've made/owned and Sekiro's main character was among the image, which confused me because normally you don't show an image like that which implies they own something they don't actually own, and I'm pretty sure the image was made by MS themselves.

Really a shame this happened.

I think a lot of people are overreacting here. The team aren't going anywhere.

@JustPlainLoco Spyro reignited & Crash 4 were both made by Toys For Boy who are still under Activision - for now

Codies to E.A. ....V.V. TO Blizzard wake me up when this nightmares over.......An act of vision.

@Kopite - For now... that's the part that worries me, and I don't think it's a matter of IF but WHEN.

Ugh… here is hoping Microsoft can bring some calm and positive energy. I would love to see VV fully engaged on bringing more of the great content they’ve made to Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch without being fully dissolved into Blizzard but I doubt anything changes.

Overwatch 2 will be released this year. Probably without the PvE part but they can’t afford to waste another year. Plus the beta is coming in few days.

@__jamiie I wouldn’t say they are overreacting. There are examples how studios were bought, slowly integrated into Blizzard structure to end as a support units for CoD or other projects which eventually led to end of those studios.

Such a waste. I thought the Microsoft aquisition would stop that merger dead. Hopefully Sony can tempt some of the talent to their studios, or Microsoft gives them an opportunity to make something like a new THPS - albeit under the Blizzard label

I hope Microsoft revives them. That’ll one good thing to come from the takeover

I wish Activision would go bankrupt & be forced to sell off their IP's & a good publisher got crash & spyro

@Jacko11 I doubt they'd be making these decisions now when they're about to be acquired by Microsoft if they thought Microsoft would just do a complete 180 when the deals done

"but the Xbox maker has said that it'll continue to release Activision Blizzard titles on PlayStation platforms for the foreseeable future."

Yeah, I still don't buy it. What they say and what they do are two different things. CoD maybe because it's one of the biggest IP's and makes a crap ton of money from MTX, plus it would look bad since Sony will still allow Destiny on Xbox.

Anything outside of CoD like Crash and Spyro, highly likely isn't happening. Just look at Phil's wording for Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Single player IP's won't come to PlayStation. And that makes me sad.

If Microsoft were smart they'd play both sides of the fence. GamePass day one for their loyal fans and customers who may be enticed by a small monthly fee. And still release them on PlayStation at £70 full price. It's a win-win for them really. Money from both sides whole people may still be swayed by GamePass.

@Would_you_kindly I think they’ll continue to do whatever cause the deal isn’t going to be done till June 2023 most likely

“ The likes of Overwatch 2 still seemingly, years away. “

But the beta is this month ! it’s gotta be sometime this year or early next year!! please don’t say that , it’s already been years enough ! 😖

@nomither6 The PVP part will probably be this year, the PVE mode is still a long, long ways out. That's the whole reason the were decoupled, to get something out quicker.

Shame. Hope this doesn’t mean the end for all these great franchises. I know the Spyro trilogy and Crash 4 were handled by a different team but it would have been nice having more hands on deck for Crash, Spyro, and Tony Hawk.

@GeneJacket damn

@nomither6 If I were betting, I'd bet we get the PVE portion sometime early next year, but I could see it getting pushed to mid-late next year. They said the game was in the "later stages of production" during their investor call last year, but I get the impression they're having some development troubles. Compound that with all the stuff going on internally and with Activision as a whole, and I wouldn't hold my breath for the PVE part coming any time soon. The playerbase for OW1 is already dangerously low, that's why they're starting to roll out the PVP section, because they know of they don't release something soon the playerbase isn't going to keep waiting and interest in Overwatch as a brand is going to plummet.

@GeneJacket and the PVP section is only a beta at that it’s not even the official portion of the game .

and honestly , i don’t even think OW2 is gonna be better than OW1 , with the 5v5 and people including the director and creator of the franchise leaving , but in this predicament something is better than nothing .

but also the thought of it all is still heartbreaking

@JustPlainLoco I'm hoping that, even though they won't be on Playstation, that they handle the IP they've picked better than Activision has & they have with Rare's IP (Banjo, Conker, Killer Instinct)

I'm confused, does this mean I won't ever get a THPS3 remake now? If not, boooo! Don't care about the other stuff, personally.

RIP. Blizzard have been a fading force for years now, even without the added insult of their shocking treatment of dev staff.
Shame to lose such a talanted team to bolster a dev whos well past its 'best used by' date, but its done.
Even if they help raise the quality of output, it wouldnt matter to me as im not buying activision blizzard titles regardless, they are dead to me.
Maybe in years to come ill play a title on gamepass and remember them, but it feels like a sad end to that team.

@Rural-Bandit "Cripple" is a strong word. It would hurt Sony, but the Playstation brand is established enough that they'd make do. The loss of one publisher wouldn't kill them. Hell, they might even have to work harder catering to people like me that they've alienated over the years, which, from my perspective, would end up being a good thing.

The initial reactions on this site are such a cringey echo chamber sometimes it’s embarrassing 🤦‍♂️ I’ll never forget the Elden Ring reveal where a large amount of people here said it would be DOA because it looked like Dark Souls 3.

Blizzard has 55 games/expansions they’ve released over the years on Metacritic and of those 55 only 5 have “mixed” reactions. Diablo 4, Overwatch 2, Blizzard’s new IP, WoW: Classic WotLK are all going to be massive successes in the coming years; not to mention Hearthstone is still very popular.

RIP VV.

Goodbye Tony Hawk 3 & 4 and Crash.

😒 more blizzard games...yay.

@ScottyG

I will you are right about Elden Ring situation.

Ppl are saying these things because Blizzard has been shell of themselves for the better part of the last 5yrs. All those great games where made by different ppl who are no longer there, and their "remakes" and "remaster" have been just lazy ports and bare minimal of effort with broken mechanics. Some ppl here never got to see Golden age of Blizzard, when they were creative and special and were cranking out quality PC games.

My point is, ppl want to see polished games VV were making stellar remakes and remasters of games. To use them for more Blizzard games is a waste of time and could be used for better things.

I get from your comments you are a fan of Blizzard and their games and that's cool that you're still loyal to them. Especially in a time where ppl are fickle and quick to jump on another Publishing/developer team. You also have to realize like Dice/Halo fans something's are just past their decade or their time. Be loyal to what they create now and cherish the past just dont get trapped into the past of nostalgia because they made.

This is how we all lose in general and get stuck in a cycle of remasters and rebrand games.

My bad....that was a long read. Have a good day.

@Rural-Bandit CoD makes billions every year across multiple platforms and titles. Doing a little research online, the expectation from analysts seems to be that Sony could lose "between $87.5 million and $262.6 million a year" if CoD went exclusive to Xbox and PC.

By comparison, the Playstation division apparently pulled in almost 25 billion dollars in revenue just last year.

So, is the worst case scenario (which probably won't happen) a big hit to Sony? Sure. "Crippling" is probably an overstatement, though. The Playstation brand is huge, and certainly big enough that it could manage without Activision if they had to.

Seeing as it wouldn't sink Sony and would probably force them to work harder to lure players to their ecosystem, I fail to see why I should care if they lose out on Activision titles.

@Rural-Bandit The Xbox brand will definitely become more competitive now in the States with some really big titles being (console) exclusive to Series devices. Assuming they actually make good on their sky-high plans for Game Pass, which remains to be seen, as Microsoft seems to be terrible at managing the quality and consistency of their first-party output compared to Sony and Nintendo.

Europe will be a much tougher nut to crack, especially if they're not going to play hardball with the Activision deal. Japan, too, although I think everyone has kind of accepted they'll be dining on Nintendo's crumbs in that market for the foreseeable future.

I'm on the record as being pretty thoroughly disenchanted with the direction Sony has been going as a company for a while now, but Microsoft isn't necessarily doing a lot to convince me to jump ship to their ecosystem, either. Granted, the value proposition GP represents is obvious, but it's also incompatible with my purchasing and playing habits.

I will say, though, both Nintendo and MS seem to have coherent, confident approaches to how they're going to forge ahead into the future, but the Playstation brand, while still very mighty, seems somewhat confused in comparison, and a lot of their moves as a company seem very reactionary.

At the moment, though, if I'm being brutally honest, I wouldn't trade one IP like Horizon or Uncharted for pretty much everything Microsoft has published since the end of the Xbox 360 era. And as long as I can keep saying stuff like that, Microsoft can't move me with any of its pro-consumer posturing.

Presumably that'll change when the Bethesda and Obsidian acquisitions bear fruit, though. Although considering Microsoft will apparently not be doing much to meddle with their development process, it's hard to even think of them as Microsoft developers.

@nessisonett Typical reaction to acquisition by Microsoft could happen here with Vicarious Visions:

1) MS buys studio
2) Talented people at said studio leave
3) Talented people set up new studio and produce some amazing stuff that they want to do
4) MS Studio finally plops out something decent but hardly amazing years afterwards.

Happened to Rare, can happen again.