It sure seems like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remastered is real and will be grinding down the halfpipe and ollieing into our hearts sometime later this year. As a fan who grew up dipping in and out of the series, I missed these two beloved entries, but now I’m excited to experience levels I’ve never played reproduced with the same production values we saw in 2020’s THPS 1+2 remaster. That outing was a ton of fun, and like thousands of others, I assumed new versions of the later games were only a matter of time.
But I’m irritated that this is how we’re getting it. Last year, Tony Hawk teased that the series would return. Then last week, a skater who was featured in the previous remasters said that he was involved in a new game. A leaker then claimed the remaster would shadow drop during the Xbox Games Showcase in June. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is teasing it too, and there’s a countdown to March 4 on the THPS website.
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Activision Blizzard Did Vicarious Visions Dirty
This is pretty normal sequel stuff, although I’m disappointed that Vicarious Visions seems to have no involvement with the project after knocking 1+2 out of the skate park. The studio (now renamed Blizzard Albany) was reportedly pulled from the planned follow-up months ago and plugged into the Diablo 4 content mines. Iron Galaxy, a Chicago-based studio known for its work on ports, is instead named on the countdown page.
Activision Blizzard’s treatment of Vicarious Visions has always irritated me. VV has been a solid studio putting out good work since 1991. The studio was often given the thankless task of porting console games to handhelds, and was one of the best in the business at capturing a game’s essence, even if the graphics and complexity couldn’t match the home versions.
THPS 1 + 2 Should Have Launched Vicarious Visions To The Big Leagues
With Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, which followed three years after it helmed the 20 million selling Crash Bandicoot: The N.Sane Trilogy, it seemed like VV was finally getting the high profile projects it deserved. It made THPS1+2 a massive success. It has an 89 average on OpenCritic, with 97 percent of reviewers recommending it, and a 90 from players. More importantly for Activision Blizzard, it sold better than any previous entry in the series.
There was an extremely straightforward path to further success, as Vicarious Visions could have remade the third and fourth entries, then potentially moved on to the Underground duo or made an entirely new entry. Fans were certainly on board. The skateboard, that is. Sorry…
But Activision Blizzard prioritized its biggest franchises over a smaller name that had seen huge success. Activision Blizzard has repeatedly shown that it only really cares about its big franchises, and any studio it owns could get swallowed up if it makes it even one percent easier to ship the next Call of Duty or Diablo 4 expansion.
It sucks, and as the failure of many games-as-a-service has reminded us lately, it’s dangerous to bet too big on a single mega-game. If a year comes where the new Call of Duty flops (at least by COD standards), you don’t want to only have more COD to sell to people.
So Activision Blizzard is going back to THPS nearly five years later, and almost four years after it subsumed Vicarious Visions. Who knows, that team could be working on this remaster alongside Iron Galaxy in some capacity. But even if it is, I’m annoyed that it took this long, and that the team got taken off the project in favor of grist for the mill.
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