It looks like Vicarious Visions had some other plans before they were fully merged into Blizzard Entertainment. The developer of the wildly successful Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 has since been renamed Blizzard Albany, where they became a major part of the development process for Diablo II: Resurrected. However, that was not the original plan for the studio. In a Twitch interview with former developer Andy Gentile, and according to none other than Tony Hawk himself, Vicarious Visions were planning on going forward with remaking the next two entries in the series, which would’ve been dubbed Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4. When the studio merged with Blizzard, Activision shut down the projects, ending any hope of seeing a remake of the two aforementioned entries.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 remasters were in the works but they were scrapped after Vicarious Visions was merged into Blizzard. 😔

Source: Tony Hawk.https://t.co/84rlYDgvUQ pic.twitter.com/oWR70xTOYv

— Okami Games (@Okami13_) June 20, 2022

Hawk asserts that Vicarious Visions’ plan was to keep going forward with the remakes, especially after seeing how successful Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 was. “That was the plan; even up until the release day of (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2), we were going 3 + 4,” Hawk said. “And then Vicarious got kind of absorbed, and then they were looking for other developers, and then it was over.” Hawk also mentioned that Activision, the ones who made the decision to have Vicarious merge with Blizzard, took proposals from other studios for the potential remakes, but were not impressed by any of them. “The truth of it is that (Activision) were trying to find somebody to do 3 + 4 but they just didn’t really trust anyone the way they did Vicarious, so they took other pitches from other studios,” Hawk said “And they didn’t like anything they heard, and then that was it.”

Hawk’s statement essentially means that despite Vicarious wanting to continue working on the IP, it was ultimately Activision Blizzard who pulled the plug, even though they ended up looking at proposals from outside sources in the end anyway. Hawk also mentions that it’s possible that the 3+4 could still see a release in the future, or as he puts it, “when all the dust settles we’ll figure it out.” It’s a sad moment for what could’ve been another excellent release for the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater franchise, especially considering how impactful the remakes were. When it was released in 2020, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 was an immediate hit and became the fastest game in the series to reach 1 million units sold. It was later ported to the next generations of consoles, making it even more widely accessible.