Vicarious Visions officially merges with Blizzard, drops name

Vicarious Visions, the makers Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, has been fully merged into Blizzard Entertainment, the studio said on Tuesday. The development team is still located in Albany, New York and focuses exclusively on Blizzard Entertainment games.

A complete merger means that a studio founded 31 years ago will lose its original name and brand. Blizzard announced the merger last year, and the workers were notified of the name change in October 2021.

Vicarious Visions was founded in 1991 by brothers Karthik and Guha Bala, who sold the studio to Activision in 2005. Since then, Vicarious Visions developers have worked on portals for titles like Ultimate Spider-Man, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. Studio best known for Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2and to support last September Diablo II: Resurrection.

Former Vicarious Visions studio director Jen Oneal became Blizzard’s VP of development after Vicarious Visions joined Blizzard in January. The following July, when Blizzard president J. Allen Brack resigned following a workplace harassment and discrimination lawsuit brought by California regulators, Oneal and Mike Ybarra replaced Brack as head of Blizzard. . Oneal stepped down from that role shortly after, and a later Wall Street Journal report said Oneal told others she had little confidence in Activision Blizzard’s leadership under the massive cloud created. by numerous investigations of sexual harassment and discrimination.

In January, Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard in a landmark $68.7 billion deal that will face regulatory scrutiny with the Federal Trade Commission . CEO Bobby Kotick is also being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice for possible insider trading, the Journal reported.