The developers behind Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 and Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy Series, Vicarious Visions will lose its name following a merge with Activision Blizzard, being transformed into a support studio, possibly called Blizzard Albany, not a lead developer as it has been up to this point.
First reported by Polygon, it seems that the team at Vicarious Visions were informed of this apparent name change, which will possibly be Blizzard Albany, at an Activision Blizzard town hall meeting on Wednesday, with no knowledge of a possible name change before this. The report tells us that employees were under the impression their name would stay the same, even with the change into a support studio.
It was announced in January that the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 devs and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy developer will no longer be creating games as a lead developer. Going forward, the Vicarious Visions team of around 200 people will be employees of Blizzard and “fully dedicated to existing Blizzard games and initiatives,” Activision Blizzard told GamesIndustry.biz at the time, however, no name change was mentioned, or possibly even planned at this point.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, being the studio’s most recent game and seemingly its last as a lead developer, received favorable reviews from critics and debuted as the fastest-selling game in the franchise, selling one million copies within its first two weeks. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy was an even bigger success with ten million copies sold in its first two years. Even with this excellent news, it seems Vicarious Visions ‘lose its name’ regardless, and we sadly will not see them as a lead developer, instead as Blizzard Albany in the future.
To check out our review of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, click here.
To keep up to date with all of the latest gaming news and more, keep reading at The Nerd Stash!
