Once upon a time, developer Vicarious Visions was working on a follow-up to 2020’s excellent remake collection, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2. The project would’ve consisted of remakes of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4, which would’ve been dope. Unfortunately, according to a new investigation by YouTuber Liam Robertson of DidYouKnowGaming, the project was reportedly rejected by Activision so that the team, which was rebranded to Blizzard Albany in 2021, could focus on Call of Duty.
Robertson uploaded an hour-long video on May 4 to his DidYouKnowGaming channel. The video dives deep into a long-lost Donkey Kong 3D platformer that Vicarious Visions was allegedly (surprisingly!) working on, but evolves into a layered exposé of projects at the Activision-owned studio that were either canceled, rejected, or shelved. One of those projects was a full remake collection comprised of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1, 2, 3, and 4, which would have brought all four skate games together in one stunning collection. As you know, only two of those games were remade and released as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, which came out in 2020 to commercial and critical success. Robertson’s sources connected to the project, who spoke anonymously, said the scope was ultimately scaled down.
“During early discussions on the project, the team initially wanted their remake collection to comprise not just Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, but 3 and 4 as well,” Vicarious Visions sources told Robertson. “Ultimately, this was deemed too ambitious and the proposal was scaled back to the original two titles. One former developer explained [Activision’s] decision thusly: ‘We settled on adding some handling features from the later games to reflect the way people remember the old THPS games. Some of the improvements from [THPS] 3 seemed to bleed into people’s memories of the first 2. 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.’”
Robertson said that one part of the reason why Activision swatted away Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 was because it wanted Vicarious Visions to provide supplemental work on Call of Duty, something the studio had done with 2016’s Infinite Warfare. Another part of the reason was the eventual 2021 merger which saw Activision gobble up Vicarious Visions, change its name to Blizzard Albany, and prompt the team to move from the Diablo II remake to other Activision projects, namely more Call of Duty and, eventually, Diablo IV.
“[Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2] would go on to release in September 2020 to universal critical acclaim and was a big commercial hit,” Robertson said. “It became the fastest-selling game in the franchise and was cited as a major source of revenue for Activision in their 2020 investor’s briefing. Around launch, there was a brief flicker of hope that Vicarious Visions would get to fulfill their ambition of revamping Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4. A pitch for such a project was presented to Activision’s head shortly after the first two were finished and they declined to greenlight it, again telling the studio that they wanted them to focus on supplementing their larger franchises.”
This all seems to line up with what the Birdman himself has said about the project. In June 2022, Tony Hawk explained that the plan was always to release THPS 3+4, but everything came to a screeching halt when Activision absorbed Vicarious Visions.
“I mean that was the plan, you know, even up until the release date of [THPS1+2] we were going 3+4,” Hawk said during a Neversoft Twitch stream. “Then Vicarious got kind of absorbed, and they were looking for other developers, and then it was over.”
Kotaku reached out to Activision for comment.
This sucks a lot, because Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 were exceptional games that recaptured the vibe of the first two entries—which are over two decades old now—while modernizing them in ways that make them more approachable for newer audiences. It came after the disastrous release that was 2015’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, and following up that abysmal game was no easy feat, so I thought this remastered collection would’ve revitalized the franchise as a whole. But at this point, we can only hope that Activision tries to breathe new life into it again at some point in the future.
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