If you were still holding out hope for remakes for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, well sorry to disappoint but they were apparently cancelled following news of Vicarious Vision’s merger with Blizzard Entertainment in January 2021, according to Tony Hawk himself during a Twitch live stream hosted by former Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 lead designer, Andy Gentile.
The news of the cancellation follows the developer’s complete merger into the company known for World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch stating that they are “fully dedicated to Blizzard games.” The move was a sign that the developer was no more and the fanbase is rightfully concerned for the future of the franchise, now the skateboarding legend’s comments on the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 remakes are worrying.
“Even up until the release day of THPS 1+2 we were going 3 and 4, and then Vicarious got absorbed and then [Activision] were looking at other developers and then it was over. The truth of it is they were trying to find someone to do 3 and 4 but they just didn’t really trust anyone the way they did Vicarious. So they took other pitches from other studios, asking like ‘what would you do with the THPS title’ and they didn’t like anything they heard. Then that was it,” Tony Hawk revealed during a live stream.
The last true Vicarious Visions game was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 Remake which won the Game Award in the Sports/Racing category. In our 2020 review of the game, we stated that the game “restored two childhood favorite games… to near perfection.” Hawk is still holding out hope for the future of the series, but it’d be a good bet to not expect any future Tony Hawk game announcements in the future. We’ll see or not if Activision Blizzard fully under Phil Spencer’s leadership at Xbox Game Studios will change in this disappointing news. Maybe we’ll see if Tony Hawk can once again skate in something new in the video game space.
