Activision has announced (via a report on Gamesindustry.biz) that Albany game studio Vicarious Visions is now a subsidiary of Blizzard Entertainment.
An Activision representative told the outlet that the company’s 200 employees are now staffed in the house of Warcraft, and its executives have formally joined Blizzard leadership. Studio head Jen Oneal is now Blizzard executive vice president of development, and reports to company president J. Allen Brack.
Simon Ebejer, former Vicarious Visions chief operating officer, is now Vicarious Visions’ studio head.
This means that Vicarious Visions’ swan song as a non-Blizzard developer will Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, a robust remake of the first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games.
Since Activision acquired the company in 2005, the studio has served as an unusually high-profile port and remake house for the company’s key franchises like Crash Bandicoot and Guitar Hero, even once debuting a special Guitar Hero peripheral for the Nintendo DS. Before Bungie regained its independence from Activision, it was also a supporting development studio on Destiny 2.
Longtime game developers may recall that Vicarious Visions won two Independent Games Festival awards in 1999 for its space flight role-playing game Terminus.