News of Vicarious Visions being absorbed into Blizzard Entertainment to support development on the likes of Diablo and Overwatch didn’t sit well with fans. Especially when this came not long after Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+ 2, the beloved remakes of the first two Pro Skater games.
Many fans had hoped that the success of the remakes would see other Pro Skater games receive the same treatment. Now it turns out that was the plan, only for Vicarious Visions’ absorption to result in those plans being scrapped by Activision.
This comes from Tony Hawk himself, who revealed on a recent Twitch livestream (from the 2:26:24 mark) that remakes for Pro Skater 3 and 4 were in the works even before Pro Skater 1 + 2 was out. The projects weren’t canceled immediately and Activision did consider other developers to handle it. We don’t know which studios Activision approached but, according to Hawk, Activision didn’t like any of the ideas it heard.
“That was the plan, even up until the release date of [Pro Skater 1 + 2],” explained Hawk. “We were doing 3 and 4, and then Vicarious got kind of absorbed, and then they were looking for other developers, and then it was over.”
Hawk does suggest that it’s still possible for these remakes to come to fruition down the line since he never would’ve thought that the first two games would have been remade, but it will ultimately be up to Activision.
One has to ask, though, why didn’t it give the projects back to Vicarious Visions if Activision didn’t trust anybody else to handle the remakes? Regardless, this news will only make the company less popular with Pro Skater fans than it already was. Although Activision likely has bigger things to worry about thanks to the numerous controversies and scandals it’s been caught up in.
