Vicarious Visions Is Seemingly No More After It Merges With Blizzard Entertainment

I hope the fine talented people there are able to find positions that truly appreciate their skills.
Talented devs deserve way better than farming IPs for the rest of their careers.

@CharlieGirl unfortunately that last sentence is exactly what Activision Blizzard specializes in doing: (

This is a joke, right?

Absolutely vile. Talk about gutting a talented studio. Especially straight after the superb Tony Hawk remakes.

Well, that is a shame. I mean, none of us are expecting future support for Switch at this point are we?

Well that sucks.

@GrailUK both blizzard and VV have been the consistent parts of activision that support the switch alongside toys for bobs. I doubt VV and blizzard will suddenly stop after this merger especially since overwatch 2 and diablo 4 are still slated for release on the switch.

@Nintendo4Sonic why is this a joke?
I recall mentioning that this merge could mean shutdown for many section and IPs?
Don’t forget they want to cater in the direction of NFT, Cloud Gaming, digital media and services. You know, more control of your wallet. 😂

@darkswabber Well, we will see. I'm still hoping Switch gets a Modern Warfare game. But Activision aren't a company I'm too thrilled with these days.

But we still need a remake of Tony Hawk 3!!!!

This is really sad, especially as they're one of the few developers who really make an effort with their Switch ports and seem to understand the system well. Switch version of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 and the Crash Trilogy were fantastic, high quality products that made the most of the system, a lot of developers could learn from them.

@darkswabber diablo 4 hasn't been announced for the switch.

That big mouthed greedy corporation swallowed them!

@Scrubicius so Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3+4 will be developed by the master minds of Pro Skater 5 maybe. 🤮

That's a real shame. Vicarious Visions did great with Crash Bandicoot. Hope they'll be doing good things, and not thrown into some random project they have no business with, like a certain other developer who worked on a Crash game...

activision has become the new ea they aquire studios and then they end up in the grave like ea has done with studios that they aquire.

@BloodyMurder they redeemed themselves with crash 4 on switch

@kobashi100 That was Toys for Bob NOT Vicarious Visions.

that disapointing, i was expecting Vicarious Vision to develop Spyro 4 for everything incluiding Switch.

@Mauzuri let hope under Microsoft leadership, they fix Activision Blizzard.

@Nintendo4Sonic I haven’t played 5 yet but I also don’t own the remakes on the Switch. Not sure if the ports are any good? 🤷‍♂️🤔

Rest easy sweet prince

You know, at first, I was disappointed that the acquisition of Activision meant we wouldn't get any more Spyro/Crash games on Switch, but at this point, that doesn't seem to matter. They're going all in by consolidating their resources in service of their mainstream money-makers.

I don't really care if their games come to future Nintendo consoles or not anymore.

I also still want Tony Hawk 3 remake- they should add it as a DLC to 1+2 remake.

@BloodyMurder "fix the physics in Crash 1"

I did 100% Crash 1 Trilogy. And I did 100% old Playstation Crash 1.

I didn't realize what's wrong with the gameplay. It looked the same to me.

Another great developer killed by Activision. Damn.

Another one bites de_dust.

Even less reason for me to care what Activision are doing going forward, such a shame to see a talented studio absolutely wasted

I thought they already merge, aren't these companies under the Microsoft's umbrella now? This is probably them moving all the Activision folks around.

it's like those developers have to go to hell before they die.

@Rykdrew
I don't believe you. Either way, it doesn't matter as the physics in Crash 1 are still borked.

@Specter_of-the_OLED The deal isn't finished yet, not for several months.

@BloodyMurder I can reinstall Crash on my current Switch and make the 100% again. It won't be fast because I don't have much time to play.

When I do, I'll post it on youtube or take a picture. Can I post link here?

I'm not feeling superior or anything. It's just that the game is difficult, yes, very difficult, but I just didn't see any gameplay problems. On playstation it was just as difficult.

Maybe posting these 100% for you, you will have a better experience with the game, or encourage you to play more. I don´t know.

@Rykdrew
No. They need to fix the physics of Crash 1 on the Nsane Trilogy. This was documented ever sense release (youtube it) and complained about which lead to the infamous "git gud" article.

https://blog.activision.com/ru/crash-bandicoot/archives/go-ahead-and-jump

They wasted time typing that instead of fixing the physics. They can rot in the Blizzard mines.

@BloodyMurder I loved the n sane trilogy & didn't have any issues playing it , it was 3 great games completely remade for a very reasonable price

@BTB20 that doesn't stop people saying all Activision games will come to gamepass soon

@Scrubicius Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is a good port on the Switch considering the hardware limitation. The framerate is capped at 30 but is often stable. The game unfortunately is limited to display at 720p when docked. I would only recommend the port if you want your Crash 4 on the go unless the Switch version is your only option....actually, I would recommend it over the always online version on Battle.net.

Did they do Gun as well? I really liked that one

Activision Blizzard never fails to disappoint. Now I heard this was happening a while ago anyway, so this is just confirmation for what everyone already assumed.

Which I guess is fine because unless Microsoft fundamentally changes the company, no one should give Activision Blizzard any of their money ever.

As long as Spencer fires Kotick, it will be fine.

I honestly can't think of one person in the industry that would want to work for Blizzard at this point. It's a death sentence for anyone to be bought by them. Expect their employees to find new jobs.

Surely this is the last sacrifice the monster squid demands. We don't need to worry ourselves anymore.

Game over, Man! Game Over!

A sad day. I wish the enployees well.

Microsoft needs to do a complete restructuring of Activision/Blizzard, like fire all the executives running them and come up with entirely new ways of them being managed. Terrible leadership is what weakened them enough to have been bought out in the first place.

I'm afraid we'll see more of this under MS. They buy alot of Devs who just go on autopilot and then disappear. Blank checks don't result in good management and finished games. Look at 343, massive teams often lead to long development cycles and curiously unfinished games. It's almost like no one cares, because every game just gets dumped out on the GamePass feeding trough anyway.

This is how most mergers/acquisitions works. First it's the assurance that nothing will change. Then it's the trimming of benefits/perks. Then it's the layoffs. Then magically, poof, the company is no more.

I may be alone but I will miss their Skylander games :’(

@nessisonett I mean that and Crash N Sane Trilogy was all they worked on before Diablo 2.

@Giancarlothomaz Except Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, and even Crash 4 weren't given to Vicarious Visions

@Entrr_username They’ve been around since the 90s and have been a subsidiary of Activision since 2005. Their games were a massive part of my childhood way before Blizzard got their grubby hands on them.

VV made the only Activision-Blizzard games I’m interested in.

I genuinely don't see the problem with this?
They retain their own offices in Albany (Blizzard North style) and have merged with a company owned by the publisher they did most of their work with anyway. And said company (Blizzard) is often cited to be controlled by Activision since 2008 anyway, so people ought to be happy with this?

Need Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake on Switch.

… Wun can only hope.

@nessisonett Have you seen their game portfolio? They've been doing ports of Skylanders until Crash and even then weren't brought on to do Crash Team Racing and Crash 4. Blizzard definitely needed the support since their rep was in the gutter even before the lawsuit.

@MortalKombat2007 Yeah I already have Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. Unfortunate it is still wrapped up and unopened. Backlog is a b3-y8tch.
30FPS game don’t bother me with my trained veteran gaming eyes.