Video game historian Liam Robertson has reported some interesting tidbits this weekend, including more details about an abandoned Donkey Kong game. In the same YouTube video, he reports that Activision reportedly rejected a pitch for Vicarious Visions to work on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, despite the incredibly positive reaction to the first remake, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2.
According to a Vicarious Visions source, the first remake was planned to include the aforementioned 3+4.
“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,” the source stated. “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.”
Unfortunately, their pitch to Activision was far from successful. Instead, the company tasked Vicarious Visions with more work related to the Call of Duty franchise, as well as the Diablo 2 remake.
According to Tony Hawk himself, the second collection of remakes was on the way until Vicarious Visions was completely absorbed by Activision.
“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,” Hawk said.
“The truth of it is, Activision was 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.”
Vicarious Visions officially merged with Blizzard in 2022.
