In another piece of very interesting news out of the industry today, Vicarious Visions, the developer behind the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1&2 remake, has been absorbed by Blizzard.
While previously under the Activision umbrella, according to a report out of Bloomberg, the Vicarious Visions team of approximately 200 employees has been absorbed into Blizzard. The team is now fully dedicated to Blizzard projects, while former Studio Head Jennifer Oneal will now sit on the Blizzard Leadership Team while reporting directly to the president.
Perhaps most interesting however, is that the highly-anticipated Diablo 2 : Resurrected will partially be handed to the team at VV. According to a report, Blizzard’s “Team 1” who was previously responsible for the poorly received Warcraft III : Reforged release, has been pulled from development. The division responsible for Diablo 4 has taken over development to which the teams at Vicarious Visions will be added.
Our Take
While we’re sad to hear that Vicarious Visions will no longer work on the Tony Hawk IP given the brilliance of the remake (find our review here), we are excited about more talent being added to the division responsible for Diablo 4 and Diablo 2 : Resurrected. As with most team transitions in the industry, time will tell how this plays out.
