Authors Crash and Tony Hawk become part of Blizzard -apkrig

Activision Blizzard has announced that it is moving the Vicarious Visions studio under the direct management of Blizzard. The authors of Skylanders, Crash Bandicoot or the successful remaster of the first and second part of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series thus change their field of activity after sixteen long years and open up the opportunity to work on Blizzard’s portfolio of games. The decision is accompanied by the transfer of former Vicarious Visions director Jennifer Oneal to the management of Blizzard, where she will work directly under the company’s president J. Allen Brack. However, a Blizzard spokesman declined to comment on exactly what the 200-member Vicarious Visions team was supposed to help, only announcing that it would be a long-term collaboration. He also added that the new director of the studio will be Simon Ebejer, who previously served as operations director.

The addressed Blizzard representative did not comment on the ongoing project, but confirmed that the cooperation between Blizzard and the developers from Vicarious Visions has indeed been going on for some time.

However, the whole situation does not end with official information – referring to its sources close to all the mentioned subjects, Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier commented on the transfer of the studio under the leadership of Blizzard, who brings unconfirmed details about the future involvement of Vicarious Visions. He first explains that Blizzard used to work on his games internally, without the need for third-party partners, but that was supposed to change over the past year, when he allegedly approached the aforementioned Vicarious Visions to help them prepare for a remake of Diablo II with the subtitle Resurrected. And although the Blizzard representative contacted did not comment on the project in any way, he confirmed that the collaboration between Blizzard and the developers at Vicarious Visions has indeed been going on for some time.

Blizzard said today that it’s absorbing Vicarious Visions. What it didn’t say:

– VV has been working on a Diablo II remake
– Team 1, Blizzard’s „classic team,“ was quietly dismantled last fall

New from me, including some insight on WC3 Reforged: https://t.co/VGczypoBPi

– Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 22, 2021

Schreier further states that the reason for involving a completely different studio in the development of Blizzard’s own brand is the failure of the Warcraft III remaster. The version with the subtitle Reforged was in charge of the internal Team 1, but the game was not positively received by the players or critics, and according to Bloomberg, it was supposed to be an impulse for the announced change. However, this was not to be the fault of the developers, given the internal documents that Jason Schreier was supposed to have access to: “It states that the game failed due to poor planning, communication problems and a hurried release pushed by management.” On October 15 last year, when the members of Team 1 received a report on the reorganization of the entire division, in which employees were to be offered another position within Blizzard, or allowed to leave. According to Schreier, the establishment of Frost Giant and DreamHaven was to come from former high-ranking Blizzard employees who did not identify with the new regulations and the strengthening of Activision’s influence.

As for the alleged remake of Diablo II, Bloomberg states that immediately after the completion of work on the Warcraft remaster, people from Team 1 were to embark on it, so that the development could be moved to Team 3, which is working on Diablo IV. And it is Blizzard’s third developer to be in control of the Vicarious Visions, which are set to complete the ongoing project.