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Vicarious Visions merger ended plans for more Tony Hawk remakes

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In 2020, Activision released Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, a remake of the first two Tony Hawk's Pro Skater titles, which received rave reviews and was seen as a return to form for the struggling series. Aside from a port to current-gen consoles there's been no news about further entries into the series, but it seems that may not have been the initial plan. According to Tony Hawk himself, speaking on a recent Twitch livestream, as late as the release day of 1 + 2, a remake of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4 was also planned, but was canceled because of Vicarious Vision's absorption into Activision Blizzard to help on Diablo II: Resurrected. "Even up until the release day of [Tony Haw's Pro Skater 1 + 2]," said Hawk, "we were going 3 and 4. Then Vicarious got absorbed, and then they were looking for other developers. And then it was over.” Hawk also expanded on the mention that Activision was looking for other developers, adding “[Activision] were trying to find somebody to do 3 and 4 but they just didn’t really trust anyone the way they [trusted] Vicarious."

He also remains optimistic that the series can be brought back one day, hoping things can be figured out "once the dust settles," likely referring to Microsoft's upcoming merger with Activision Blizzard. Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, has mentioned previously that he'd like to utilize more of Activision Blizzard's IPs and, while he's never made comments referring specifically to Vicarious Visions or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Spencer has discussed developer Toys for Bob who were put in a similar situation by Activision Blizzard. Toys for Bob developed the well-received Crash Bandicoot 4 but were then reassigned to work as a support studio on Call of Duty: Warzone, which led Spencer to say he'd like to get teams IPs that they want to work on. This may indicate a willingness to move development teams around to IP they're better suited for, and could lead to Vicarious Visions going back to the THPS franchise if there's an appropriate push for it.
 
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Antics

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Some of my best memories was playing THPS3 with friends -- we turned our every day skateboarding into minigames in THPS with the help of sim-mode and recreated a lot of local skate parks, practicing basic ideas and then trying them in real life.

It really pains me to know we may never get a THPS3 remaster. I still play my GCN copy, with those same parks that my friends created (some of who have since passed away, as well as parks that have been demolished) to this day. Man...This news stings.
 
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Even if another never happens it is ending on a high note at least, and a way better end than 5 ever was going to be.

That said would have been nice to see more.
 
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FAST6191 said:
Even if another never happens it is ending on a high note at least, and a way better end than 5 ever was going to be.

That said would have been nice to see more.
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Yeah, 3+4 and then the 2 underground games together would have been sweet.
 
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Kwyjor said:
I had the impression that 2 was the peak of the series, and that no one much cared for 3 and 4?
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Nah. I mean, from a nostalgia perspective maybe, but every Tony Hawk game through American Wasteland were all pretty big hits.
Downhill Jam, Project 8, Proving Ground all could be argued as where the series really started to bite it. Then the games with the board controller, there's really no debate on those.
 
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While personally the series peaked for me at the second game, most subsequenst games were still awesome titles to play. It's a shame we wont see any further remakes after how well the THPS1+2 remake was done.

I would have been particularly interested in the Underground series or American Wasteland.
 
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Purple_Shyguy said:
It makes absolutely no sense to do this.

Hopefully they can get them back
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Well, their spreadsheets showed Diablo made them more money than THPS in the last few quarters, so there you go.
Kwyjor said:
I had the impression that 2 was the peak of the series, and that no one much cared for 3 and 4?
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3 was still big, but 4 is where the fatigue was starting to set it. Hence the ensuing evolution, I guess.
 
FAST6191

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Kwyjor said:
I had the impression that 2 was the peak of the series, and that no one much cared for 3 and 4?
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That is probably where things get contentious.

After 4 things got pretty silly with story modes and minigames, and the idea of combos becoming increasingly dominant* if we are more gameplay focused, though I will say I played the "classic" mode in one of the ones on the xbox and had a good time there. I would however bet though if you were to try to poll people on where the series lost its way then after 4 would be the main answer. The 2 is best camp would probably be the technical purists and you might get some that liked Tony Hawk Undergorund aka THUG** (Tony Hawk 5 until the actually numbered 5 came along a decade later). I don't know that I have necessarily met those that dismissed 4 but liked 3 but it would be where the humour aspect ramped up (hah) quite a bit so could see it if nothing else being considered a portent of things to come.

*first game no manual, no revert. Second game manual added but no revert so while you could chain something together it usually still ended once you hit a ramp. Third added revert and after that it was all much of a muchness. EA's Skate 2 and Skate 3 also appeared and changed things up considerably for a lot of people.

**I do also have to note the ultimate compilation (all levels they can, including the Disney ones that used the same engine, that modders used THUG 2 http://www.thugpro.com/ so take from that what you will.

I don't necessarily agree with this guy in a lot of his other things but the following is an interesting take

or if I am going for silly long videos then ranking every level in every game (including handheld versions, which are their own thing -- quite a few people really like the GBA versions) but does give a reasonable overview.
 

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