Blizzard is gobbling up Vicarious Visions

Game publisher Activision is folding one of its oldest support studios into Blizzard. On Friday, the company told GamesIndustry.biz all 200 team members of Vicarious Visions are now employees of Blizzard. And moving forward, they’ll be “fully dedicated to existing Blizzard games and initiatives.” That means Vicarious Visions, which worked on last year’s excellent Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 remaster, won’t be making its own games anymore. Instead, it will assist Blizzard with projects like Overwatch and World of Warcraft.

“After collaborating with Vicarious Visions for some time and developing a great relationship, Blizzard realized there was an opportunity for [the studio] to provide long-term support,” a spokesperson for Acitivison told the publication.

While it didn’t have the cachet of an Infinity Ward or Treyarch, Vicarious Visions still played an important part in Activision’s business. After Activision acquired the developer in 2005, it went on to work games like Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro for the PlayStation 2, and ported many of Activision’s most popular franchises like Guitar Hero and Skylanders to mobile platforms. It also worked on the 2017 Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy remaster. If there’s a silver lining to today’s news, it’s that the team won’t have to move their families to California; the studio is staying put in Albany, New York. And they’ll get to work on games millions people love to play everyday.