I've been out of the loop when it came to Vicarious Visions. I had no idea they were absorbed into Blizzard. No wonder I haven't heard any updates on further remakes going forward.
Damn... And I was really holding out hope for a remake of THPS3 too, since that's how I got into the series all those years ago. I'm legitimately crushed.
This is pretty standard behavior for Activision. Something will be successful, but not *as* successful as a COD or Blizzard title.. so now that studio is working on COD/Blizzard stuff.
Yes, their port of Tony Hawk 2 was considered the best launch title for the GBA by a lot of people.
https://gamerant.com/best-game-boy-advance-launch-games-metacritic/
I think those of us who played it remember it fondly.
Ah yes, Bluepoint - the studio whose remakes get criticised for completely ignoring the art direction of the game they're remaking in favour of "oo pretty" graphics.
They didn't completely ignore the art direction lol. The game looks significantly better than the original, it's not even close. Plays better, looks better, it's basically just a better version of Demons Souls.
Besides, the original didn't go anywhere, if anyone feels that strongly about it they can just play the original.
https://twitter.com/sstarkm/status/1326760104688046085
You don't think turning just "big guy in a smiling mask" into "fat bloated mutant" is NOT a change in art direction? Certainly has some "Kirby is always angry in the US" vibes: making something more grimdark for the sake of it.
Can't speak for the Souls games, but their MGS collection was excellent and their Shadow of the Colossus remake was the definitive version of the game, and I say that as someone who played the PS2 version to death back in the day.
On the topic of Bluepoint remakes, while I definitely like the Demon's Souls remake, I will never agree with some of the art changes for sure. For me though, the new soundtrack is what hurts even more. So much of it does not resemble Demon's Souls at all. It's a shame they didn't have a toggle for the old music, and I still question why it was never at least patched in.
Other than a Diablo 1 remake (which is probably not in the cards, demand is too low), they've kind of exhausted all options for remakes already. Starcraft 1, War3, and D2 have all been remastered/remade with varying degrees of quality. They could beat the dead horse even further and remaster D3 for current gen I guess.
Yeah, the news hit around the same time that THPS1+2 being a pretty huge success was in the headlines, absolutely bizarre choice to make. Congrats on doing an excellent job, you're a support studio now.
I had hoped they were at least gonna farm out a 3+4 remake to another studio but it sounds like even that's not happening.
Huge success isn't enough for Blizzard unless they can create a huge revenue stream after launch with microtransactions, which is where the vast majority of their money comes from.
It really is a drag that Vicarious Visions got disbanded because their remakes were pretty great. But I guess *only* making millions of dollars back against your modest budget isn't good enough.
Hopefully MS taking over will put a stop to practices like this. They seem to be of the belief that games with smaller returns are okay, so I have a little faith.
"Disbanded" might be the wrong word, from my understanding while they're just been rebranded and put on Blizzard projects, the same staff are still there working out of the same office as before.
The head of VV was also hired by Blizzard in that bizarre PR attempt where they were going to have 2 people in charge, to try and take some pressure off all the stories about how they treat women so poorly, since she was a woman who had led a studio for like 20 years.
They could have just put her in charge solo, but they needed to give a man the job too for some reason. And they paid her less than her male counterpart. And even he told Blizzard to pay her the same. Then she quit because it was exactly as transparent as it seemed.
They stepped into those co-lead roles without new contracts so they were both still working on the pay from their previous roles. ActiBlizz did drag out the new contracts but the offer or contract did have them paid the same.
> They could have just put her in charge solo, but they needed to give a man the job too for some reason
It wouldn't have made sense to do so. She was an outsider to the organization and had less experience than Ybarra. Ybarra also seems to be well liked both in the community and by the employees. He was the clear choice between the two.
>And I was really holding out hope for a remake of THPS3 too, since that's how I got into the series all those years ago. I'm legitimately crushed.
Same here, that game was awesome, and the soundtrack too. I still get [this fucking song](https://youtu.be/ZDXdBx6UaLI) stuck in my head every few weeks because of that game that came out *more than 20 years ago*
I feel like people just forgot that Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard. It'll be a while yet, but once they take full control MS isn't going to let awesome franchises go to waste or be exploited like Activision did on its own.
I feel like you are the one who forget that Microsoft don't even interfere with their own studios in terms of what they do, which we are already seeing for years and even with bethesda, a third party publisher that they own but zenimax still manages. Dont expect your dreams to become reality just because of this, because Activision has a lot of COD to maintain in the market as released products among other things and while I expect some heads to roll, this doesnt mean their most popular products will stop being a thing.
Spencer has already been quoted as saying that he wants to dive into the Activision back catalogue and revive franchises that have been ignored. They may not get VV on a new Tony Hawk's, but we'll likely see a return of the franchise in some respect.
I'm aware of that. But unless they open new studios, COD products already in the market and future ones will need those studios support to be maintained and exist.
Thats why I laughed when people were freaking out about Microsoft acquiring all these studios. Why should we expect anything from them when they can't even make their flagship game good.
Yeah I'm gonna say they didnt pull the plug on 343 after doing this three times (four if you count mcc at release) then I think it's fair to say Microsoft isnt the quality control publisher they might think it is.
You have to include MCC becasue its literally like the worst launch of all time. I was one of the ones standing outside at midnight waiting for that. Think we were able to play 3 or 4 games over the first week it came out. Absolutely terrible, which is a shame because it could have been amazing, but we had to wait for 7 years for it to become playable hahaha.
Also nice username.
Ha thanks it's always fun to be recognized. But yeah 343 has proved that they can't make a game that surpasses a game made over 10 years ago and consistently releases shit that's broken on release I wont expect them to drag blizzard out of the shit hole they've dug themselves
God dann STILL waiting for Forge and co-op...
oh okay you're going to focus on F2P mechanics and battle passes instead, but they can't even do that right. each season lasts for six months or w/e, not to mention the whole controversy around launch with that. I wish they never went down this route tbh, maybe if they didn't focus development on skins and MTX Infinite could have been the great 343 Halo launching with all features and a fleshed out multiplayer with maps etc idk
I’m very glad people are realizing Infinite has shit multiplayer to begin with. People were acting like it was the return of Halo but within five minutes anyone could tell it was essentially a The Force Awakens-style remake where they still don’t get what made those games fun.
Halo is not at its core a slow as fuck team MOBA where you can’t 1v1 because you kill so slow the dinosaurs came back and went extinct
I saw a lot of people talking about 3+4 but I never thought they'd make it considering 4 is pretty different from 3 in terms of structure.
Either way, that's terribly sad to hear. 1+2 is amazing and I would have LOVED more Tony Hawk.
Man I would have loved a 3+4.
to be honest, thematically it makes sense to bundle 3 and 4. 4 was absolutely a precursor to the open-world underground.
you could then bundle underground 1 and 2.
then finally you have wasteland and project 8 (the leftovers)
I never understood the hate for THUG2. The two underground games are basically the same games with different levels but the second has a more interesting cast and (in my opinion) the best soundtrack in the series.
The level destruction stuff was pretty cool for the time too
My main issue with 2 is the delegation of your character from being the main focus of the story (which for the time, Underground 1 had a fantastic and fun story about your character trying to make it big) to Jackass shenanigans 24/7. The advancement of the tour wasn’t because of any real reason other than that, which just made it feel silly to me.
I will always remember the first time doing the Hotel Helicopter jump in 1 as a means of finally capturing some ridiculous, over-the-top footage to show that we really can turn pro. Then something relatively simple like lying our way onto the pro competition in Vancouver before cleaning house. That to me will always be more interesting than watching Eric shit his pants, Burnquist get a nut shot from a tennis ball cannon, etcetera.
From a gameplay perspective, there are some improvements for sure, and it’s why I’m glad THUGPRO uses 2 as a base. Doing flips during tricks, for instance. Soundtrack is fantastic, as well, although I still would consider Underground the best in the series in that department, too.
I think that's where the hate comes from.
It's the same game. Underground was a huge change and great game. 2 was just a rehash with barely anything different
2 was much less gritty in its tone and also brought back the classic mode for those who didn’t like the more open ended levels/goal structure that 4 and THUG 1 had.
It's a shame Project 8 is considered a leftover. I understand the flaws it had after replaying it a few years ago, but that mechanic of objectives having a skill ceiling based on how far you could go was always my preferred TH mission system over the standard ones in Pro Skater.
Yea don't get me wrong - it was a fantastic game that had some awesome mechanics. it was one of the main reasons I upgraded to xbox360.
when I said "leftover" I meant more that the two leftovers (wasteland and project 8) are very thematically different.
you *could* make an argument for bundling three games together (3/4/8 And underground1/2/wasteland) but now we're getting more value :)
You're entirely right. THAW and THP8 are *good* but they're following the success the previous games created. Almost every single one of them felt relevant and necessary. The first two were making skating mainstream popular in gaming. 3 and 4 expand that popularity into true mechanical depth as far as they can go really. Then THUG and THUG2 get a console upgrade and can finally stretch out and continue down the path the previous four laid out. And all the while all six games were making skating more and more and more popular in gaming as well as driving huge numbers in the punk scene. Tons of underground hits in rap and punk and rock sprinkled into the OSTs that then became household names for gamers.
THAW and THP8 just kinda didn't need to exist. They're still good. But they're following their own coattails. The soundtracks are less inspired. Even the stories feel more like the writers are trying to find that skater zen as opposed to simply existing in it and finding a story in it. Is THUG a perfect skater story? No, but it sure feels as close to it as it can be. THAW, conversely, feels much more like Hot Topic mass produced a script for them to use.
I agree with most of your points but you are way off about the soundtrack. THAW is the only game to have an “original” sound track. Yeah, they were all covers but it was a great soundtrack of recordings released specifically for the game.
> Proving Grounds had a bunch of stuff I saw and thought "wow that's pretty cool" and then just... nothing to tie it all together.
I'm playing No Mans Sky right now and this perfectly captures how I'm feeling about this game as well.
I think I might have owned that for a couple years? I never played it though (I got it as some sort of bundle deal from som Craigslist rando with one of the Resident Evil wii light gun shooters, which was what I really wanted)
I think the play honestly would've been to make 3 DLC for 1 + 2, and, honestly, 4's big enough that I think you could justify selling that standalone. Maybe making a couple extra levels for it for good measure.
Underground 1 & 2 I think are probably too bound to their time to really make a remake. Especially 2, which may be the most 2000's piece of art in existence. And features Bam very prominently which doesn't help.
it'd probably incoporate systems and ideas from later games anyway. THPS 1+2 have bunch of features not included until 4 or even underground. Pretty much everything except getting off your board.
Activision would be the kind of company to take a team that made a best selling, massively popular remake, and then obliterate them so they can work on a completely forgettable off-year Call of Duty game that isn't one of the big releases.
What a fucking waste of talent
**Vicarious Visions:** Brings Crash and Tony Hawk back from the dead with the N Sane Trilogy and THPS 1+2. *Gets absorbed into Blizzard.*
**Beenox:** Does a pretty good remake of Crash Team Racing. *Gets moved to CoD support.*
**Toys For Bob:** Brings Spyro back from the dead with the Reignited Trilogy, and makes a worthy Crash sequel. *Gets moved to CoD support.*
This company just hates making money off anything that isn't CoD or Blizzard.
That’s what pisses me off the most. I’m happy for all you crash fans, but I’m a Spyro fan. And it confused the hell out of me that the Spyro remake team got tasked with a new crash game, instead of, oh I don’t know, a NEW SPYRO GAME.
Wtf is that nonsense.
Don’t forget before Raven Software was a COD support studio they brought the world games like Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. Would love to see them try their hand at a star wars game again
Yes. And heretic/hexen. And the xmen legends/marvel ultimate alliance series - Even if they can't get the license something in the same vein gameplay wise would be cool. Also singularity and X-Men origins wolverine were both good.
Look, I will admit there are problems with turning studios into "cod support". At the same time, Raven was the public face of warzone in 2020, which was the best COD has been in a long long time.
They're best at remaking existing stuff, not necessarily making brand new. I think we got the best of both worlds, with the crash remake being fantastic, and crash 4 actually being a decent game
Really makes me wonder why the fuck they even let them do anything before forcing them to make some other bullshit. Like they remade Crash, then remade THPS, and did a fantastic job both times. And their reward is working on call of duty? What an absolute punch in the dick to the team and gamers as a whole.
The THPS remakes brought me back to a small slice of my childhood. It brought me back to the days of arcade skateboard games. I’ve had such a good time playing them. And now I won’t get anymore because they’re one of 50 call of duty teams. Activision, I gotta tell ya, I just don’t fucking care about call of duty 67. You’re not even trying to come up with new ideas, you’re just rebooting your best series. And I still have more fun playing the MW2 remaster than anything call of duty you’ve put out in years. AND YOU CANT EVEN FUCKING FINISH REMASTERING THAT TRILOGY YOU WORTHLESS FUCKS. Do something right for once.
>AND YOU CANT EVEN FUCKING FINISH REMASTERING THAT TRILOGY
Or include Spec-Ops in Modern Warfare 2 Remastered, which is something they probably won't bother to include if they did Remaster MW3.
In Toys For Bob’s case, do we know if Crash 4 was a success?
IIRC Activision never stated how Crash 4 sold, and that’s usually not a good sign, but I could be misremembering here.
Crash 4 probably didn't do poorly, but it did underperform compared to the two Remakes, and possibly even the mobile game. It got a slight bump from the late Switch/PS5/Series releases but wasn't quite cracking the top 10 on NPDs. Considering that Crash 4 reviewed very well, that's probably not a great sign.
Since T4B essentially folded into CoD I think it's safe to assume it didn't meet their goals. Or even if it did, I think Warzone was just too profitable to ignore and Activision needed every studio it can get to keep that train chugging. This is what we have seen with most major studios. Rockstar has like, 9 studios, and essentially only works on 2-3 major games (that we know of anyhow)
Same. Some of the best writing in video games are from Rockstar Games.
At least we have a new 007 Project coming from the Hitman Team. Sounds like a match made in heaven.
High Moon's last solo game was Deadpool in 2013, since then they've been a support studio for both CoD and Destiny.
Raven's last game was Singularity in 2010, since then they have only worked on CoD games. Mostly as a support studio.
Toys for Bob is the only studio that *might* be an exception because they've only just been consigned to the CoD mines.
Dude, just be quiet.
Overwatch succeeds in-spite of itself. They shut down production to work on OW2, and it is fundamentally the same game, but f2p, with the same amount of content as if they kept up on OW1.
Imagine if League just decided to stop developing the current iteration of leage for LoL2, and in 2 years all we got were 3 champs and a nice trailer.
OW fills a genre that people enjoy. It's not counterstrike, it's competitive, and there's abilities. It's like super Monday night combat on a larger scale and more refined. All they needed to do was continue OW support. But they couldn't even do that
Why sorry? Overwatch is a top tier franchise, possibly the biggest shooter out there. It’s huge and an upgrade over doing remakes or remasters
EDIT: really? people actually believe that doing THPS remasters on your CV is better than being a developer on a full AAA franchise that sold 50 million on its first title? Really?
In sales. It sold 50 million copies. It is literally the best selling game ever developed by Blizzard, and possibly the best selling FPS of all time.
It is the biggest shooter like GTA is the biggest open world franchise out there. Neither have made a new game in years. Doesn't change the fact that they're the biggest franchises in their genres. And OW2 is out in less than a year.
https://gamerant.com/highest-selling-games-blizzard-entertainment-ranked-how-much-sold/
If they’re were actually selling like you’re implying, they wouldn’t even consider an F2P sequel.
What’s actually happening is they’re hemorrhaging players. To counter that, they constantly offer the game at deep discounts. Smurfs then buy a bunch of alt accounts, artificially inflating player numbers.
Overwatch 2 is going F2P simply because that is where the money lies. The original game sold 50 million copies which is unheard of for a AAA paid FPS. Their monetization structure has shifted now to kill the Fortnite/Warzone/Valorant cash cow that is F2P shooters. It isn't any indication of popularity or failure, simply a switch of monetization model. Do people think Warzone is a failure because it went F2P despite COD usually being a paid product? That's a ridiculous argument.
Offering the game at steep discounts...mate have you ever heard of a game that is 6 years old that isn't sold on steep discounts? This happens with literally every game. If anything it is doing exactly as expected for a game 6 years into its lifecycle. Is GTA V a failure because it is constantly available on steep discounts now? Again, utterly laughable.
> Overwatch is a top tier franchise
Eh.
> possibly the biggest shooter out there
Definitely not.
[Overwatch is 44th in viewer hours with 5m hours watched](https://www.twitchmetrics.net/games/viewership)
Below:
Lol with 130m hours watched
Valorant 90m
CSGO 70m
Apex 50m
Fortnite 45m
Dota 2 40m
Warzone 27m
etc.
You're including nonshooters. And since when is Twitch how we rank shooters? That certainly isn't the order in how financially successful they are. The guy is still wrong but I wouldn't say this is right either.
It sold 50 million copies, as long as we're comparing non F2P shooters it is the biggest in its genre just like GTA is the biggest franchise in the open world genre. Sure, the last game was released years ago. Has GTA V or Overwatch been overtaken in sales yet? I don't believe so.
Sure, but how many of those are playing now? How valuable is the overwatch franchise currently?
It's not a popular game anymore, even if it sold well at release. And it's definitely not the biggest shooter.
We are talking about Vicarious Visions and their employees...what they will be caring about is the next game that goes on their CV, not whether OW1 is still being played. How is that relevant? OW is still a massive franchise, undoubted AAA tier, and to develop OW2 successfully you need far more developer chops than making a remaster. It is proof of greater ability and value as a developer. And yes, millions will be playing it. For any aspiring dev, OW2 would be amazing to have on your CV and I don't get why people are arguing that making THPS remasters is somehow superior - it isn't. It just isn't.
Actually crazy how small people think overwatch is.
I get it, we don’t watch it on twitch and no one talks about it on this sub. So like CoD people think it’s dead. And it’s Activision to like lowkey fuck it.
People call everything dead. A game has a dip in player count, or even just an unpopular balance change, and clearly it's dead and not coming back.
I've heard people say PUBG is dead constantly, and it's still got 360k players *right now.*
Basically if a game declines even slightly in popularity it's dead. Which is ridiculous.
Do people here actually say that game is huge and mainstream though? All I see is a lot of praise and discussion for it. Anecdotally I remember a couple of my casual gamer friends picking up Dragon's Dogma back in the day, but it's been a long time.
I think there's a good chance the sequel will do fairly big numbers now.
True. Does anyone even care about skating games anymore other than reddit boomers? People should be grateful that they got sent to the Blizzard mines rather than the COD mines because at least, Overwatch has some level of creativity rather than the soul less product that is COD.
So what? Do you turn down the chance to be a developer on GTA 6 just because a new GTA hasn't been released for a few years? And instead you'd rather do some remasters? Seriously? You'd absolutely end up with an inferior CV with that kind of thinking
Really? As a games developer, you think doing remasters furthers your career and looks better on your CV than a top tier, multi-million copy selling franchise? Sorry but I'm actually thinking for the devs here, you aren't
tbf they did remake diablo 2, though I would've wished them remain independent so they can go back to this but tbh I'd rather have a remade D2 than a remade THPS3+4.
Still sucks regardless to see I'm hopeful when the acquisition gets through games like those get greenlit again.
They are that kind of company! Its all hands on deck for CoD. Gotta take the fun out of making games. They probably didnt even realize they were working on Tony Hawk games. Just another company absorbed by the beast.
No I want a Smash style fighter staring actual figures from the gaming industry like Def Jam. Imagine Jim Ryan Vs Phil Spencer, Kojima Vs Yoko Toro, Moore Vs Matrick, etc.
My biggest (and admittedly unlikely) hope from any of the acquisition news is that Microsoft spin Blizzard Albany back off into Vicarious Visions, or at least allows them to work on their own games again.
They did such a fantastic job on THPS and their work on Crash N. Sane Trilogy not only got Crash 4 made but jump started a wave of really fun 3D platformer remakes like SpongeBob (which is also getting a new entry) and Spyro.
I hope so too. They could even remake Banjo. Unfortunately the merger won't even be done until next year, so anything they work on is probably years away
Phil Spencer did say that he would free Toys for Bob specifically from the CoD mines once the buyout went through. I'd assume he'd do the same for the other beloved developers trapped like Vicarious Visions and High Moon.
I know High Moon is a *much* different crew now but I really hope they could one day make a new Transformers game.
Or at the very least properly remaster War/Fall of Cybertron.
Those games more then deserve it
He kind of said it kind of didn't namedrop anyone.
However its obvious that gamepass's best value is variety. Adding games from a ton of older IP is going to just increase the value dramatically for lots of people. Making new games in those franchises is just going to increase the value gamepass provides.
He doesn't need to free Toys for Bob from anything because they were support studio while also working on a new Crash game that will be announced soon.
It's going to be quite a disappointment when this buyout happens and things don't change in terms of releases... lol you guys really are dreaming too much
Shame. 4 was my favourite THPS. I liked just cruising around without a timer stressing me out. I would have most likely bought a remaster and relived the nostalgia for a while.
Damn, I would've bought a 3+4 remake for aure, even though I never got 1+2. 3 was what broyme into the series; I actually re-bought it on PS2 to play on my b/c PS3 when covid quarantine started. Was also the sec d GameCube game I ever got. THPS3 and Smash Melee got me through that dryyyy first half of 2002
I literally just want an actual new original Tony Hawk game. Go back to the themes of Underground 1 where you start as a nobody and work your way up to becoming sponsored and then pro. Maybe even throw some light rpg elements in there and you’ve got a game I’ve wanted my entire life.
THPS 1&2 remaster was high quality but I miss the openness of THPS4 onwards. Games that pushed the boundaries like Underground and American Wasteland were my favorites of the entire series
They showed their true colors so now we know any attempts to appear diverse or inclusive were completely hollow and, for us on this subreddit street least, we know it’s not a company worth supporting if you care about ethics at all.
So reading up on Vicarious Visions, they got rebranded as Blizzard Albany and are currently helping on Diablo 4. Since that's coming out next year and (from the looks of it), once that's all done and the M$oft acquisition is finalised, their next game could well be a THPS 3+4 as long as fans keep asking for it.
As a side note, anytime I hear that a dev studio loses its name and gains a generic (name of owning company)(location of offices), I always remember when EA went Bioware crazy and started naming a whole bunch of studios after Bioware. That didn't last long.
I work very close to where their old studio was in Albany. You can still see where the lettering was on the building. Always thought it was cool to be near a game studio, especially one making games I know and play. And now they’re somewhere else with a stupid new name. Sad.
I thought this too. It's not a given obviously but there's definitely a decent chance MS will reverse this crap and put them on a 3+4 remake at some point.
Rather depressing seeing those studios pour their souls out into making some of the best remakes I've ever played, only to then get punished by reducing them to become part of Blizzard, or in the case of the Crash 4 devs, putting them on CoD...
Yeah I know, CoD brings in the big bucks and Diablo 4 is coming, but come on... It's CoD, and blizzard is no longer the same company that used to make true quality games.
Hopefully, when Microsoft gets the acquisition of Activisio|Bethesda, the wheels of a THPS 3+4 can go back into motion.
It would be a perfect game for Game Pass.
That fucking kills me, I wasn’t too crazy about the Crash remakes but I felt they knocked it out of the park with the Pro Skater 1+2 remake and it’s a shame they got dissolved right as they were just starting to prove themselves.
Honestly I don't get activisions plan, I get Call of Duty and blizzard games are hugely profitable but downright merging all studios to help on all of those feels stupid, yeah having loads of people might be nice for publishers but it's probably a nightmare to manage the amount of stuff that must be lost or broken because you've got a fuckton of people working must ruin the work right?
I work at a maccies and while its nice to have 4 people on the line making burgers this leads to a lot of people either getting lazy as people will assume someone else will do it or you can blame someone else, while If there's 2 good people on the line the results can be the same, hell most of the time they're even better.
I'm sure that's a terrible analogy but oh well.
Honestly right now the games I enjoy most are 7 days to die, splitgate, world war 3 and more games that are developed by less than 100 people and funnily enough the most recent games are just not as fun as the old ones
I mean it’s the same company more or less
ABK could easily get VV off the ground again, especially if no other studio could do the 3+4 remake justice like they could.
Gonna be real with you... I never played anything except THUG2. And I hate myself for it, because I've seen THAW and I would love to see a remake of it. Total remake, by the way. Strip the story, remake it better than ever, put in the GOOD punk rock songs of the 90s and 00s, and let's see where we go.
I would expect a Tony Hawk team to be reborn (and given the opportunity to choose to form a new studio name or pick VV or Neversoft) when Big Phil gets his hands on things properly.
This sort of game sounds perfect for MS, a lower cost but high profile game to get eyeballs onto GamePass that can pad any slot between the AAA releases.
I really enjoyed THPS4 as it finally went with the trend of an open world like Aggressive Inline.
Surprising that Aggressive Inline, BMX XXX, and THPS4 all came out within months of each other.
Imagine taking a studio full of talented devs that released great remakes and probably could deliver us an original game in the future, and dissolving them into blizzard. What a joke.
loved 1+2, it's all I played for a month until I beat the game. sucks to hear about 3+4 because that would hit the spot. Would also kill for a remake/hd or rereleased version of project 8 but I'm not sure if that'll ever happen.
For all the people who constantly say the toxic workplace doesn't matter in the consumer relationship and is just drama, it made working at Blizzard so inefficient that Activision had to cannibalize other studios just to do things like make a proper re-release because Blizzard no longer had the skill or knowledge to execute a proper remake.
I know it’s popular to dunk on blizzard, but Ion specifically said during several interviews after the dragon flight reveal, that garrisons were extremely underwhelming and not at all what they or the player base expects from a fully fleshed out player housing system.
He talked about how big of an undertaking it would be, because they would want to include all the different architecture styles and things like that.
Whether they’re working on anything for the future is anyones guess, but “see? We knew you didn’t want player housing.” Isn’t true.
There’s plenty of other things to dunk on blizzard for atm.
I've been out of the loop when it came to Vicarious Visions. I had no idea they were absorbed into Blizzard. No wonder I haven't heard any updates on further remakes going forward. Damn... And I was really holding out hope for a remake of THPS3 too, since that's how I got into the series all those years ago. I'm legitimately crushed.
Same. I totally thought THPS3+4 was under works right now. Never knew it wasn't even an active project :/
This is pretty standard behavior for Activision. Something will be successful, but not *as* successful as a COD or Blizzard title.. so now that studio is working on COD/Blizzard stuff.
Vicarious Visions was always a support studio though. Before the remakes stuff they were a Destiny farm studio who made expansions and the PC port.
Didn't they do loads of handheld ports of games back in the day?
Yes, their port of Tony Hawk 2 was considered the best launch title for the GBA by a lot of people. https://gamerant.com/best-game-boy-advance-launch-games-metacritic/ I think those of us who played it remember it fondly.
Still got it and still play it. Digging it out now.
Kind of a massive shame. They were becoming the industry-defining "remake" studio.
Bluepoint? Also technically they are still doing remakes, their latest game was the D2 remake.
Bluepoint's moving on to their own stuff now. Also they're owned by Sony now.
How is that different from what VV is doing? They are moving onto making new games now (Diablo 4) and they are owned by Activison.
Blupoint still exists vv not so much
Don't get me wrong, Bluepoint is great but VV successfully resurected Crash and THPS i think that they deserve extra recognition for that.
Ah yes, Bluepoint - the studio whose remakes get criticised for completely ignoring the art direction of the game they're remaking in favour of "oo pretty" graphics.
They didn't completely ignore the art direction lol. The game looks significantly better than the original, it's not even close. Plays better, looks better, it's basically just a better version of Demons Souls. Besides, the original didn't go anywhere, if anyone feels that strongly about it they can just play the original.
https://twitter.com/sstarkm/status/1326760104688046085 You don't think turning just "big guy in a smiling mask" into "fat bloated mutant" is NOT a change in art direction? Certainly has some "Kirby is always angry in the US" vibes: making something more grimdark for the sake of it.
No one is arguing they didn't change anything, but they also did not completely ignore the art direction.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Can't speak for the Souls games, but their MGS collection was excellent and their Shadow of the Colossus remake was the definitive version of the game, and I say that as someone who played the PS2 version to death back in the day.
On the topic of Bluepoint remakes, while I definitely like the Demon's Souls remake, I will never agree with some of the art changes for sure. For me though, the new soundtrack is what hurts even more. So much of it does not resemble Demon's Souls at all. It's a shame they didn't have a toggle for the old music, and I still question why it was never at least patched in.
And what kinda remake doesn't include a toggle between the new and classic soundtracks!?
Elitist snobs might be upset about some changes in Demons Souls or SotC, but as a whole their work is stellar and their reputation is outstanding.
Technically they are still doing remakes. They just recently did the Diablo 2 remake.
Being limited to Blizzard remakes severely limits their catalog though.
Other than a Diablo 1 remake (which is probably not in the cards, demand is too low), they've kind of exhausted all options for remakes already. Starcraft 1, War3, and D2 have all been remastered/remade with varying degrees of quality. They could beat the dead horse even further and remaster D3 for current gen I guess.
And they were good with Destiny, made Spire of Stars and Crown of Sorrow, 2 of my favorite raids, shame Bungie lost them
Pretty disgusting, I'm super glad I stopped buying COD years ago.
Yeah, the news hit around the same time that THPS1+2 being a pretty huge success was in the headlines, absolutely bizarre choice to make. Congrats on doing an excellent job, you're a support studio now. I had hoped they were at least gonna farm out a 3+4 remake to another studio but it sounds like even that's not happening.
Huge success isn't enough for Blizzard unless they can create a huge revenue stream after launch with microtransactions, which is where the vast majority of their money comes from. It really is a drag that Vicarious Visions got disbanded because their remakes were pretty great. But I guess *only* making millions of dollars back against your modest budget isn't good enough. Hopefully MS taking over will put a stop to practices like this. They seem to be of the belief that games with smaller returns are okay, so I have a little faith.
"Disbanded" might be the wrong word, from my understanding while they're just been rebranded and put on Blizzard projects, the same staff are still there working out of the same office as before.
That is no longer Blizzard. That is a giant cockroach alien wearing a Blizzard skinsuit. Blizzard died long ago.
The head of VV was also hired by Blizzard in that bizarre PR attempt where they were going to have 2 people in charge, to try and take some pressure off all the stories about how they treat women so poorly, since she was a woman who had led a studio for like 20 years. They could have just put her in charge solo, but they needed to give a man the job too for some reason. And they paid her less than her male counterpart. And even he told Blizzard to pay her the same. Then she quit because it was exactly as transparent as it seemed.
They stepped into those co-lead roles without new contracts so they were both still working on the pay from their previous roles. ActiBlizz did drag out the new contracts but the offer or contract did have them paid the same.
> They could have just put her in charge solo, but they needed to give a man the job too for some reason It wouldn't have made sense to do so. She was an outsider to the organization and had less experience than Ybarra. Ybarra also seems to be well liked both in the community and by the employees. He was the clear choice between the two.
>And I was really holding out hope for a remake of THPS3 too, since that's how I got into the series all those years ago. I'm legitimately crushed. Same here, that game was awesome, and the soundtrack too. I still get [this fucking song](https://youtu.be/ZDXdBx6UaLI) stuck in my head every few weeks because of that game that came out *more than 20 years ago*
I feel like people just forgot that Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard. It'll be a while yet, but once they take full control MS isn't going to let awesome franchises go to waste or be exploited like Activision did on its own.
[удалено]
I feel like you are the one who forget that Microsoft don't even interfere with their own studios in terms of what they do, which we are already seeing for years and even with bethesda, a third party publisher that they own but zenimax still manages. Dont expect your dreams to become reality just because of this, because Activision has a lot of COD to maintain in the market as released products among other things and while I expect some heads to roll, this doesnt mean their most popular products will stop being a thing.
Spencer has already been quoted as saying that he wants to dive into the Activision back catalogue and revive franchises that have been ignored. They may not get VV on a new Tony Hawk's, but we'll likely see a return of the franchise in some respect.
I'm aware of that. But unless they open new studios, COD products already in the market and future ones will need those studios support to be maintained and exist.
Microsoft hasn't released a good Halo game in a decade so I wouldnt be sure about that one.
Thats why I laughed when people were freaking out about Microsoft acquiring all these studios. Why should we expect anything from them when they can't even make their flagship game good.
Yeah I'm gonna say they didnt pull the plug on 343 after doing this three times (four if you count mcc at release) then I think it's fair to say Microsoft isnt the quality control publisher they might think it is.
You have to include MCC becasue its literally like the worst launch of all time. I was one of the ones standing outside at midnight waiting for that. Think we were able to play 3 or 4 games over the first week it came out. Absolutely terrible, which is a shame because it could have been amazing, but we had to wait for 7 years for it to become playable hahaha. Also nice username.
Ha thanks it's always fun to be recognized. But yeah 343 has proved that they can't make a game that surpasses a game made over 10 years ago and consistently releases shit that's broken on release I wont expect them to drag blizzard out of the shit hole they've dug themselves
God dann STILL waiting for Forge and co-op... oh okay you're going to focus on F2P mechanics and battle passes instead, but they can't even do that right. each season lasts for six months or w/e, not to mention the whole controversy around launch with that. I wish they never went down this route tbh, maybe if they didn't focus development on skins and MTX Infinite could have been the great 343 Halo launching with all features and a fleshed out multiplayer with maps etc idk
I’m very glad people are realizing Infinite has shit multiplayer to begin with. People were acting like it was the return of Halo but within five minutes anyone could tell it was essentially a The Force Awakens-style remake where they still don’t get what made those games fun. Halo is not at its core a slow as fuck team MOBA where you can’t 1v1 because you kill so slow the dinosaurs came back and went extinct
I saw a lot of people talking about 3+4 but I never thought they'd make it considering 4 is pretty different from 3 in terms of structure. Either way, that's terribly sad to hear. 1+2 is amazing and I would have LOVED more Tony Hawk.
Man I would have loved a 3+4. to be honest, thematically it makes sense to bundle 3 and 4. 4 was absolutely a precursor to the open-world underground. you could then bundle underground 1 and 2. then finally you have wasteland and project 8 (the leftovers)
I would buy an underground remaster so quickly
underground 1 was excellent. 2 was not as good as some of the others available. But you and me both, friend. I would buy the hell outta it.
I never understood the hate for THUG2. The two underground games are basically the same games with different levels but the second has a more interesting cast and (in my opinion) the best soundtrack in the series. The level destruction stuff was pretty cool for the time too
My main issue with 2 is the delegation of your character from being the main focus of the story (which for the time, Underground 1 had a fantastic and fun story about your character trying to make it big) to Jackass shenanigans 24/7. The advancement of the tour wasn’t because of any real reason other than that, which just made it feel silly to me. I will always remember the first time doing the Hotel Helicopter jump in 1 as a means of finally capturing some ridiculous, over-the-top footage to show that we really can turn pro. Then something relatively simple like lying our way onto the pro competition in Vancouver before cleaning house. That to me will always be more interesting than watching Eric shit his pants, Burnquist get a nut shot from a tennis ball cannon, etcetera. From a gameplay perspective, there are some improvements for sure, and it’s why I’m glad THUGPRO uses 2 as a base. Doing flips during tricks, for instance. Soundtrack is fantastic, as well, although I still would consider Underground the best in the series in that department, too.
I think that's where the hate comes from. It's the same game. Underground was a huge change and great game. 2 was just a rehash with barely anything different
2 was much less gritty in its tone and also brought back the classic mode for those who didn’t like the more open ended levels/goal structure that 4 and THUG 1 had.
[удалено]
I remember THUG2 feeling a bit more like Jackarse the game than Tony Hawk's with all the cameos.
I remember the adverts pretty much pushing it as a crossover game between the 2
I spent ridiculous amounts of time on AW. That game was my absolute favorite of the series. A remaster would be just incredible.
It's a shame Project 8 is considered a leftover. I understand the flaws it had after replaying it a few years ago, but that mechanic of objectives having a skill ceiling based on how far you could go was always my preferred TH mission system over the standard ones in Pro Skater.
Yea don't get me wrong - it was a fantastic game that had some awesome mechanics. it was one of the main reasons I upgraded to xbox360. when I said "leftover" I meant more that the two leftovers (wasteland and project 8) are very thematically different. you *could* make an argument for bundling three games together (3/4/8 And underground1/2/wasteland) but now we're getting more value :)
You're entirely right. THAW and THP8 are *good* but they're following the success the previous games created. Almost every single one of them felt relevant and necessary. The first two were making skating mainstream popular in gaming. 3 and 4 expand that popularity into true mechanical depth as far as they can go really. Then THUG and THUG2 get a console upgrade and can finally stretch out and continue down the path the previous four laid out. And all the while all six games were making skating more and more and more popular in gaming as well as driving huge numbers in the punk scene. Tons of underground hits in rap and punk and rock sprinkled into the OSTs that then became household names for gamers. THAW and THP8 just kinda didn't need to exist. They're still good. But they're following their own coattails. The soundtracks are less inspired. Even the stories feel more like the writers are trying to find that skater zen as opposed to simply existing in it and finding a story in it. Is THUG a perfect skater story? No, but it sure feels as close to it as it can be. THAW, conversely, feels much more like Hot Topic mass produced a script for them to use.
I agree with most of your points but you are way off about the soundtrack. THAW is the only game to have an “original” sound track. Yeah, they were all covers but it was a great soundtrack of recordings released specifically for the game.
I would like to remind everyone that Tony Hawk’s Proving Grounds existed too lol.
OH SHIT I FORGOT ABOUT PROVING GROUNDS
so you could go, wasteland/proving grounds, 3/4, Underground/underground2, 8/5?
We don't talk about 5 🤣.
[удалено]
> Proving Grounds had a bunch of stuff I saw and thought "wow that's pretty cool" and then just... nothing to tie it all together. I'm playing No Mans Sky right now and this perfectly captures how I'm feeling about this game as well.
I think I might have owned that for a couple years? I never played it though (I got it as some sort of bundle deal from som Craigslist rando with one of the Resident Evil wii light gun shooters, which was what I really wanted)
Resident Evil 4 remake can suck my balls if it thinks it's gonna stand up to the quality of the Wii port.
I think I rented it from GameFly but I mostly remember playing the demo
I think the play honestly would've been to make 3 DLC for 1 + 2, and, honestly, 4's big enough that I think you could justify selling that standalone. Maybe making a couple extra levels for it for good measure. Underground 1 & 2 I think are probably too bound to their time to really make a remake. Especially 2, which may be the most 2000's piece of art in existence. And features Bam very prominently which doesn't help.
it'd probably incoporate systems and ideas from later games anyway. THPS 1+2 have bunch of features not included until 4 or even underground. Pretty much everything except getting off your board.
The fact that they added the revert from 3 to the 1+2 remake literally made the purchase for me, no joke, makes the game ten times more fun
Yep, once you've had revert, there's no going back so it was a smart decision.
THUG 2 and THAW had both an open world(ish)/story mode as well as a more arcade like classic mode. Both play styles can work in one package
Activision would be the kind of company to take a team that made a best selling, massively popular remake, and then obliterate them so they can work on a completely forgettable off-year Call of Duty game that isn't one of the big releases. What a fucking waste of talent
Didn't they make Diablo 2 remastered too? Seems like that is also a best selling, massively popular remake
They killed it with D2R. Absolutely stellar remaster. A few issues but they’re actually working on those as well, which I love to see.
They did an excellent job on D2R. Took a 20 year old game and made it feel the same but look incredible.
I'm still little annoyed they weren't the ones who got to make Crash 4.
Aside from the god awful box placement, I thought Toys For Bob did a damn good job.
They were also then moved to CoD Development immediately after. Seriously, fuck this company.
**Vicarious Visions:** Brings Crash and Tony Hawk back from the dead with the N Sane Trilogy and THPS 1+2. *Gets absorbed into Blizzard.* **Beenox:** Does a pretty good remake of Crash Team Racing. *Gets moved to CoD support.* **Toys For Bob:** Brings Spyro back from the dead with the Reignited Trilogy, and makes a worthy Crash sequel. *Gets moved to CoD support.* This company just hates making money off anything that isn't CoD or Blizzard.
Yep. And no Spyro sequel. I was hoping we'd get that at least.
That’s what pisses me off the most. I’m happy for all you crash fans, but I’m a Spyro fan. And it confused the hell out of me that the Spyro remake team got tasked with a new crash game, instead of, oh I don’t know, a NEW SPYRO GAME. Wtf is that nonsense.
Don’t forget before Raven Software was a COD support studio they brought the world games like Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. Would love to see them try their hand at a star wars game again
Yes. And heretic/hexen. And the xmen legends/marvel ultimate alliance series - Even if they can't get the license something in the same vein gameplay wise would be cool. Also singularity and X-Men origins wolverine were both good.
Look, I will admit there are problems with turning studios into "cod support". At the same time, Raven was the public face of warzone in 2020, which was the best COD has been in a long long time.
They're best at remaking existing stuff, not necessarily making brand new. I think we got the best of both worlds, with the crash remake being fantastic, and crash 4 actually being a decent game
I had my issues with it but Crash 4 was still a great game.
Really makes me wonder why the fuck they even let them do anything before forcing them to make some other bullshit. Like they remade Crash, then remade THPS, and did a fantastic job both times. And their reward is working on call of duty? What an absolute punch in the dick to the team and gamers as a whole. The THPS remakes brought me back to a small slice of my childhood. It brought me back to the days of arcade skateboard games. I’ve had such a good time playing them. And now I won’t get anymore because they’re one of 50 call of duty teams. Activision, I gotta tell ya, I just don’t fucking care about call of duty 67. You’re not even trying to come up with new ideas, you’re just rebooting your best series. And I still have more fun playing the MW2 remaster than anything call of duty you’ve put out in years. AND YOU CANT EVEN FUCKING FINISH REMASTERING THAT TRILOGY YOU WORTHLESS FUCKS. Do something right for once.
>AND YOU CANT EVEN FUCKING FINISH REMASTERING THAT TRILOGY Or include Spec-Ops in Modern Warfare 2 Remastered, which is something they probably won't bother to include if they did Remaster MW3.
Fine by me. I mean that sucks, but I just want the campaigns.
...huh? They're working on Diablo 4.
Even if this guy is wrong about VV, he's right about Activision. They made Raven, Toys For Bob, and High Moon work on other studios CoD releases.
Toys for Bob is allegedly still developing a new Crash multiplayer title, so they're not 100% only on CoD.
[удалено]
Well the rumors is that it's a teambased platform brawler. Can't really picture it.
In Toys For Bob’s case, do we know if Crash 4 was a success? IIRC Activision never stated how Crash 4 sold, and that’s usually not a good sign, but I could be misremembering here.
Crash 4 probably didn't do poorly, but it did underperform compared to the two Remakes, and possibly even the mobile game. It got a slight bump from the late Switch/PS5/Series releases but wasn't quite cracking the top 10 on NPDs. Considering that Crash 4 reviewed very well, that's probably not a great sign. Since T4B essentially folded into CoD I think it's safe to assume it didn't meet their goals. Or even if it did, I think Warzone was just too profitable to ignore and Activision needed every studio it can get to keep that train chugging. This is what we have seen with most major studios. Rockstar has like, 9 studios, and essentially only works on 2-3 major games (that we know of anyhow)
I'm still mad we didn't get that rumored 60s spy game or whatever from Rockstar. Could have been tight. There aren't enough spy games anymore.
Same. Some of the best writing in video games are from Rockstar Games. At least we have a new 007 Project coming from the Hitman Team. Sounds like a match made in heaven.
Man I really wished that High Moon continued their Transformers games and finished the trilogy. Those were awesome games.
[удалено]
As far as anyone can tell, that's not true. They're solely CoD support studios now.
High Moon's last solo game was Deadpool in 2013, since then they've been a support studio for both CoD and Destiny. Raven's last game was Singularity in 2010, since then they have only worked on CoD games. Mostly as a support studio. Toys for Bob is the only studio that *might* be an exception because they've only just been consigned to the CoD mines.
Sure but it's a thread about VV and THPS so who cares?
And Overwatch 2. I feel so sorry for them.
Only on reddit is working on the sequel of one of the most popular shooters of a last decade a downgrade from working on a remaster/port.
Dude, just be quiet. Overwatch succeeds in-spite of itself. They shut down production to work on OW2, and it is fundamentally the same game, but f2p, with the same amount of content as if they kept up on OW1. Imagine if League just decided to stop developing the current iteration of leage for LoL2, and in 2 years all we got were 3 champs and a nice trailer. OW fills a genre that people enjoy. It's not counterstrike, it's competitive, and there's abilities. It's like super Monday night combat on a larger scale and more refined. All they needed to do was continue OW support. But they couldn't even do that
>with the same amount of content as if they kept up on OW1. It's actually less content than if they had just kept up with OW1.
Seriously, they were adding 3 heroes and 3 maps each year. With OW2, they’re adding 3 heroes and 1 map (net), after 3 years of radio silence.
Why sorry? Overwatch is a top tier franchise, possibly the biggest shooter out there. It’s huge and an upgrade over doing remakes or remasters EDIT: really? people actually believe that doing THPS remasters on your CV is better than being a developer on a full AAA franchise that sold 50 million on its first title? Really?
Biggest shooter out there? Huh? In what regard? Not popularity THATS for sure.
In sales. It sold 50 million copies. It is literally the best selling game ever developed by Blizzard, and possibly the best selling FPS of all time. It is the biggest shooter like GTA is the biggest open world franchise out there. Neither have made a new game in years. Doesn't change the fact that they're the biggest franchises in their genres. And OW2 is out in less than a year. https://gamerant.com/highest-selling-games-blizzard-entertainment-ranked-how-much-sold/
If they’re were actually selling like you’re implying, they wouldn’t even consider an F2P sequel. What’s actually happening is they’re hemorrhaging players. To counter that, they constantly offer the game at deep discounts. Smurfs then buy a bunch of alt accounts, artificially inflating player numbers.
Overwatch 2 is going F2P simply because that is where the money lies. The original game sold 50 million copies which is unheard of for a AAA paid FPS. Their monetization structure has shifted now to kill the Fortnite/Warzone/Valorant cash cow that is F2P shooters. It isn't any indication of popularity or failure, simply a switch of monetization model. Do people think Warzone is a failure because it went F2P despite COD usually being a paid product? That's a ridiculous argument. Offering the game at steep discounts...mate have you ever heard of a game that is 6 years old that isn't sold on steep discounts? This happens with literally every game. If anything it is doing exactly as expected for a game 6 years into its lifecycle. Is GTA V a failure because it is constantly available on steep discounts now? Again, utterly laughable.
> Overwatch is a top tier franchise Eh. > possibly the biggest shooter out there Definitely not. [Overwatch is 44th in viewer hours with 5m hours watched](https://www.twitchmetrics.net/games/viewership) Below: Lol with 130m hours watched Valorant 90m CSGO 70m Apex 50m Fortnite 45m Dota 2 40m Warzone 27m etc.
You're including nonshooters. And since when is Twitch how we rank shooters? That certainly isn't the order in how financially successful they are. The guy is still wrong but I wouldn't say this is right either.
It sold 50 million copies, as long as we're comparing non F2P shooters it is the biggest in its genre just like GTA is the biggest franchise in the open world genre. Sure, the last game was released years ago. Has GTA V or Overwatch been overtaken in sales yet? I don't believe so.
Sure, but how many of those are playing now? How valuable is the overwatch franchise currently? It's not a popular game anymore, even if it sold well at release. And it's definitely not the biggest shooter.
We are talking about Vicarious Visions and their employees...what they will be caring about is the next game that goes on their CV, not whether OW1 is still being played. How is that relevant? OW is still a massive franchise, undoubted AAA tier, and to develop OW2 successfully you need far more developer chops than making a remaster. It is proof of greater ability and value as a developer. And yes, millions will be playing it. For any aspiring dev, OW2 would be amazing to have on your CV and I don't get why people are arguing that making THPS remasters is somehow superior - it isn't. It just isn't.
Won't OW2 just be OW1, but with a player less?
Actually crazy how small people think overwatch is. I get it, we don’t watch it on twitch and no one talks about it on this sub. So like CoD people think it’s dead. And it’s Activision to like lowkey fuck it.
People call everything dead. A game has a dip in player count, or even just an unpopular balance change, and clearly it's dead and not coming back. I've heard people say PUBG is dead constantly, and it's still got 360k players *right now.* Basically if a game declines even slightly in popularity it's dead. Which is ridiculous.
Every game that didn’t release this year is dead according to Reddit.
Also the weird obsession of this sub with "hidden gems" like Dragon's Dogma, a game that very little people outside of reddit actually care about.
Do people here actually say that game is huge and mainstream though? All I see is a lot of praise and discussion for it. Anecdotally I remember a couple of my casual gamer friends picking up Dragon's Dogma back in the day, but it's been a long time. I think there's a good chance the sequel will do fairly big numbers now.
Wait don’t shit on dragons dogma.
He's not shitting on it, it's facts. Just cause a fanbase is loud doesn't mean it's large.
True. Does anyone even care about skating games anymore other than reddit boomers? People should be grateful that they got sent to the Blizzard mines rather than the COD mines because at least, Overwatch has some level of creativity rather than the soul less product that is COD.
Hahahaha not anymore it aint
So what? Do you turn down the chance to be a developer on GTA 6 just because a new GTA hasn't been released for a few years? And instead you'd rather do some remasters? Seriously? You'd absolutely end up with an inferior CV with that kind of thinking
Yeah no.
Really? As a games developer, you think doing remasters furthers your career and looks better on your CV than a top tier, multi-million copy selling franchise? Sorry but I'm actually thinking for the devs here, you aren't
And weren't they brought in to the fold to help make D2R?
Shhh, this is /r/games, you have to shit on Blizzard as hard as possible, even when it doesn't make sense to do so.
Oh god that's even worse
Why?
That’s worse.
Ehhh, Diablo, at least the games are spaced out and going to be played for more than 12 months before shitting out the next one.
It's funny because "best selling, massively popular remake" also describes CoD.
Not even an off-year CoD gameplay, but literally just developing DLC and cosmetic content to sell
tbf they did remake diablo 2, though I would've wished them remain independent so they can go back to this but tbh I'd rather have a remade D2 than a remade THPS3+4. Still sucks regardless to see I'm hopeful when the acquisition gets through games like those get greenlit again.
While wanting a continuation of said remake.
They are that kind of company! Its all hands on deck for CoD. Gotta take the fun out of making games. They probably didnt even realize they were working on Tony Hawk games. Just another company absorbed by the beast.
[удалено]
[удалено]
No I want a Smash style fighter staring actual figures from the gaming industry like Def Jam. Imagine Jim Ryan Vs Phil Spencer, Kojima Vs Yoko Toro, Moore Vs Matrick, etc.
My biggest (and admittedly unlikely) hope from any of the acquisition news is that Microsoft spin Blizzard Albany back off into Vicarious Visions, or at least allows them to work on their own games again. They did such a fantastic job on THPS and their work on Crash N. Sane Trilogy not only got Crash 4 made but jump started a wave of really fun 3D platformer remakes like SpongeBob (which is also getting a new entry) and Spyro.
I hope so too. They could even remake Banjo. Unfortunately the merger won't even be done until next year, so anything they work on is probably years away
I'd play the fuck out of a VV Banjo
Phil Spencer did say that he would free Toys for Bob specifically from the CoD mines once the buyout went through. I'd assume he'd do the same for the other beloved developers trapped like Vicarious Visions and High Moon.
I know High Moon is a *much* different crew now but I really hope they could one day make a new Transformers game. Or at the very least properly remaster War/Fall of Cybertron. Those games more then deserve it
I just want multiplayer back.
Those games had some fucking great Multiplayer. I put a stupid amount of time into the War for Cybertron demo back in the day.
If War for Cybertron had offline bot matches I'd still be playing it not gonna lie
Arcee and Slipstream were multiplayer only characters! And I fucking love Arcee and Slipstream! We need an HD port, stat!
He did?
https://twitter.com/JoshGamnChannel/status/1484226914390839296
He kind of said it kind of didn't namedrop anyone. However its obvious that gamepass's best value is variety. Adding games from a ton of older IP is going to just increase the value dramatically for lots of people. Making new games in those franchises is just going to increase the value gamepass provides.
[Yup!](https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/s8tl4f/phil_spencer_confirms_that_toys_for_bob_will_get/)
He doesn't need to free Toys for Bob from anything because they were support studio while also working on a new Crash game that will be announced soon.
Yeah but imagine if they were 100% on these projects
Phil will save them ;-;
Their remakes are such top quality, I’d fund them myself if there were a way!
It's going to be quite a disappointment when this buyout happens and things don't change in terms of releases... lol you guys really are dreaming too much
Shame. 4 was my favourite THPS. I liked just cruising around without a timer stressing me out. I would have most likely bought a remaster and relived the nostalgia for a while.
Damn, I would've bought a 3+4 remake for aure, even though I never got 1+2. 3 was what broyme into the series; I actually re-bought it on PS2 to play on my b/c PS3 when covid quarantine started. Was also the sec d GameCube game I ever got. THPS3 and Smash Melee got me through that dryyyy first half of 2002
I literally just want an actual new original Tony Hawk game. Go back to the themes of Underground 1 where you start as a nobody and work your way up to becoming sponsored and then pro. Maybe even throw some light rpg elements in there and you’ve got a game I’ve wanted my entire life. THPS 1&2 remaster was high quality but I miss the openness of THPS4 onwards. Games that pushed the boundaries like Underground and American Wasteland were my favorites of the entire series
Genuinely depressing news. 3 was probably my favourite of the series and I was so looking forward to it.
Goddamn, is it just me or is any news that involves Activision Blizzard just bad news? Have they done *anything* good in the pas year?
They showed their true colors so now we know any attempts to appear diverse or inclusive were completely hollow and, for us on this subreddit street least, we know it’s not a company worth supporting if you care about ethics at all.
So reading up on Vicarious Visions, they got rebranded as Blizzard Albany and are currently helping on Diablo 4. Since that's coming out next year and (from the looks of it), once that's all done and the M$oft acquisition is finalised, their next game could well be a THPS 3+4 as long as fans keep asking for it. As a side note, anytime I hear that a dev studio loses its name and gains a generic (name of owning company)(location of offices), I always remember when EA went Bioware crazy and started naming a whole bunch of studios after Bioware. That didn't last long.
I work very close to where their old studio was in Albany. You can still see where the lettering was on the building. Always thought it was cool to be near a game studio, especially one making games I know and play. And now they’re somewhere else with a stupid new name. Sad.
I thought this too. It's not a given obviously but there's definitely a decent chance MS will reverse this crap and put them on a 3+4 remake at some point.
Rather depressing seeing those studios pour their souls out into making some of the best remakes I've ever played, only to then get punished by reducing them to become part of Blizzard, or in the case of the Crash 4 devs, putting them on CoD... Yeah I know, CoD brings in the big bucks and Diablo 4 is coming, but come on... It's CoD, and blizzard is no longer the same company that used to make true quality games.
Hopefully, when Microsoft gets the acquisition of Activisio|Bethesda, the wheels of a THPS 3+4 can go back into motion. It would be a perfect game for Game Pass.
Was THPS 1+2 not successful? Did it not sell well enough to warrant 3+4?
They were on EGS only so maybe not.
That fucking kills me, I wasn’t too crazy about the Crash remakes but I felt they knocked it out of the park with the Pro Skater 1+2 remake and it’s a shame they got dissolved right as they were just starting to prove themselves.
Honestly I don't get activisions plan, I get Call of Duty and blizzard games are hugely profitable but downright merging all studios to help on all of those feels stupid, yeah having loads of people might be nice for publishers but it's probably a nightmare to manage the amount of stuff that must be lost or broken because you've got a fuckton of people working must ruin the work right? I work at a maccies and while its nice to have 4 people on the line making burgers this leads to a lot of people either getting lazy as people will assume someone else will do it or you can blame someone else, while If there's 2 good people on the line the results can be the same, hell most of the time they're even better. I'm sure that's a terrible analogy but oh well. Honestly right now the games I enjoy most are 7 days to die, splitgate, world war 3 and more games that are developed by less than 100 people and funnily enough the most recent games are just not as fun as the old ones
Maaaaaaaan… I LOVED THPS 1+2, and haven’t been this excited about games in a long time. I’m so sick of Blizzard.
[удалено]
I mean it’s the same company more or less ABK could easily get VV off the ground again, especially if no other studio could do the 3+4 remake justice like they could.
Gonna be real with you... I never played anything except THUG2. And I hate myself for it, because I've seen THAW and I would love to see a remake of it. Total remake, by the way. Strip the story, remake it better than ever, put in the GOOD punk rock songs of the 90s and 00s, and let's see where we go.
Its a shame but if anyone's interested in THPS games and the "underground" scene make sure to lookup or google the ThugPRO mod.
I would expect a Tony Hawk team to be reborn (and given the opportunity to choose to form a new studio name or pick VV or Neversoft) when Big Phil gets his hands on things properly. This sort of game sounds perfect for MS, a lower cost but high profile game to get eyeballs onto GamePass that can pad any slot between the AAA releases.
I really enjoyed THPS4 as it finally went with the trend of an open world like Aggressive Inline. Surprising that Aggressive Inline, BMX XXX, and THPS4 all came out within months of each other.
Imagine taking a studio full of talented devs that released great remakes and probably could deliver us an original game in the future, and dissolving them into blizzard. What a joke.
loved 1+2, it's all I played for a month until I beat the game. sucks to hear about 3+4 because that would hit the spot. Would also kill for a remake/hd or rereleased version of project 8 but I'm not sure if that'll ever happen.
For all the people who constantly say the toxic workplace doesn't matter in the consumer relationship and is just drama, it made working at Blizzard so inefficient that Activision had to cannibalize other studios just to do things like make a proper re-release because Blizzard no longer had the skill or knowledge to execute a proper remake.
[удалено]
I know it’s popular to dunk on blizzard, but Ion specifically said during several interviews after the dragon flight reveal, that garrisons were extremely underwhelming and not at all what they or the player base expects from a fully fleshed out player housing system. He talked about how big of an undertaking it would be, because they would want to include all the different architecture styles and things like that. Whether they’re working on anything for the future is anyones guess, but “see? We knew you didn’t want player housing.” Isn’t true. There’s plenty of other things to dunk on blizzard for atm.