Vicarious Visions, developers of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, has partnered with Blizzard Entertainment
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 and Skylanders developer Vicarious Visions has partnered with Blizzard Entertainment.
The developer was previously tied to Activision but has moved to the Blizzard side of the partnership after last working on Diablo II: Resurrected.
While the 200 or so employees will remain at their Albany-based studio, they will now work exclusively on Blizzard games, meaning Vicarious will no longer be the lead developer on a project, but a supporting studio. This is nothing new for the Vicarious staff – they were a key support during development of the PC version of Destiny 2 – but this official merger signals the end of lead development like that on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2.
We’re officially merged with Blizzard Entertainment. Our development team will remain in Albany, NY and will be fully dedicated to Blizzard games. We invite you to follow us @Blizzard_Ent
— Vicarious Visions (@VvisionsStudio) April 12, 2022
A Blizzard spokesman later told gamesindustry.biz that going forward the studio would be “fully dedicated to existing Blizzard games and initiatives.”
They added, “After working with Vicarious Visions for some time and building a great relationship, Blizzard realized there was an opportunity for [Vicarious Visions] support in the long term.”
There’s no word on what game Vicarious staff will be working on, but Blizzard has a number of projects in the works, including Diablo 4, a Diablo mobile game, Overwatch 2, and more.
Vicarious’ history spans almost 30 years since it first released Synnergist for PC in 1996 and since then has worked on dozens of different titles for almost every console.
His biggest franchise is arguably the toys-to-life phenomenon Skylanders, which Vicarious worked on for most of the 2010s.
More recently, it worked on the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane trilogy, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, and the Diablo 2 remaster released last year.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally thinks about tweeting @thelastdinsdale. He’ll be talking about The Witcher all day.
https://www.ign.com/articles/tony-hawks-pro-skater-developer-vicarious-visions-blizzard-entertainment Vicarious Visions, developers of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, has partnered with Blizzard Entertainment