Activision rejected Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 in favour of supplementary Call of Duty work, it’s claimed

05.05.2024 - 14:29 / videogameschronicle.com / Jordan Middler

Activision reportedly rejected a pitch for Tony Hawk’s 3 + 4, preferring Vicarious Visions to work as a Call of Duty support studio.

In a new video from video game historian Liam Robertson, it’s claimed that following the huge success of the first remake, a pitch for a second remake collection was created.

Initially, the first remake, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skate 1 + 2 was planned to include 3 + 4 as well as the first game.

“We settled on adding some handling features from the later games to reflect the way people remember the old Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games. The improvements from 3 seemed to bleed into people’s memories of the first 2,” claimed one Vicarious Visions source to Robertson.

“Eventually it became clear that we didn’t have time for more than 1 + 2, so the idea that we’d continue on and release 3+4 in some fashion was on the table.”

A pitch for Tony Hawk’s 3+4 was presented to Activision following the commercial and critical success of the first remake, it’s claimed, however, this was declined.

Activision reportedly favored Vicarious Visions assisting on Activision’s main franchise, Call of Duty. Vicarious Visions also assisted on the development of the Diablo 2 remake.

Tony Hawk claimed in 2022 that the second collection of remakes was planned up until Vicarious Visions was absorbed into Activision entirely.

“That was the plan, even up until the release date of [1 and 2],” Hawk said. “We were doing 3 and 4, and then Vicarious got kind of absorbed, and then they were looking for other developers, and then it was over.”

He added: “The truth of it is [Activision] were trying to find somebody 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, like, ‘what would you do with the THPS title?’ And they didn’t like anything they heard, and then that was it.

“Who knows? Maybe when the dust settles, we’ll figure it out. You never know. I never would’ve thought we were going to do 1 and 2 20 years later.”

Activision Blizzard announced in January 2021 that it planned to fold Vicarious Visions into Blizzard as a support team, and the merger became official in April of this 2022.