On January 22, 2021 it was confirmed by Activision Blizzard that Vicarious Visions, the studio behind the recently released Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 , has merged with Blizzard Entertainment to work on new titles under the Blizzard moniker.
Vicarious Visions was a company with more than 200 employees that was founded in 1990 in Menands, NY. The company was later purchased by game publisher Activision and had them work on the Guitar Hero franchise of games for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS. In the late 2010’s they developed the highly successful toys to life franchise ‘Skylanders” and in 2017 they would go on to become a support studio for Bungie and the Destiny franchise.
In a report from Brendan Sinclair, an editor at gamesindustry.biz, an Activision representative explained, “After collaborating with Vicarious Visions for some time and developing a great relationship, Blizzard realized there was an opportunity for [Vicarious Visions] to provide long-term support”.
Blizzard is the developer behind the world-wide hits Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft and they merged with Activision back in 2008. Diablo 2 was released in 2000 and is considered a ground breaking game due to its dark fantasy elements and innovative role playing mechanics. The game currently stands at an 88/100 on Metacritic.
Jason Schreier from Bloomberg, reports that the merger was might have been done in order to restart development on the rumored Diablo 2 remake. Schreier said, “the Diablo II remake was set to be developed by Blizzard’s Team 1, part of the company’s Irvine, California, campus that had become known for reworking classic games. Its most recent release, in January 2020, was a remake called Warcraft III: Reforged. The title was poorly received due to glitches and missing features, earning 59 out of 100 points on the review aggregator Metacritic — the lowest score a Blizzard game has ever gotten”.
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