Developer Vicarious Visions did the impossible with the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 remakes in 2020, as they made all-timer games even better. The foundations were laid for what could have been a promising revival of Tony Hawk games on PS5 and Xbox, with plans supposedly set to bring Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 remakes to life. In a new YouTube documentary from gaming historian Liam Robertson, Activision reportedly pulled the plug due to time and ambition.
The YouTuber’s latest video delves into many of the best games in Activision’s library, but it is the mention of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater franchise that stings the most. Back when the Pro Skater remakes were initially pitched, Robertson claims that “the [Vicarious Visions] team initially wanted their remake collection to comprise not just [Pro Skater] one and two, but three and four as well.” However, Activision supposedly deemed the PS5 and Xbox collection “too ambitious, and production was scaled back to the original two titles.”
Furthermore, an anonymous source within the studio expresses, “we settled on adding some handling features from the later games to reflect the way people remember the old Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games. The improvements from 3 seemed to bleed into people’s memories of the first 2 [games].” If you’re yet to play two of the best sport games on consoles, Vicarious’ remakes add later-stage features like spine transfers, wall plants, and reverts into the game.
Robertson’s source alleges that “it became clear that we didn’t have time for more than 1 + 2, so the idea [was] that we’d continue on and release 3+4 in some fashion, [if it] was on the table.” Sadly, this never came to fruition. The last major update on the potential set of new PS5 games and new Xbox games was in 2022.
Tony Hawk himself purported that plans were in place until Vicarious Visions’ obligations to Activision’s mammoth FPS game franchise, Call of Duty, got in the way. During a Twitch stream with ‘AndyTHPS’, Hawk said, “I wish I could say we have something in the works, but Vicarious Visions kinda got disbanded […] we were going three and four […] and then it was over.”
Furthermore, Hawk expresses that the cancellation of the project was down to Activision trusting other studios with the property. Hawk adds that Activision “took other pitches from other studios, like, ‘what would you do with the THPS title?’ And they didn’t like anything they heard, and then that was it.”
In other PS5 and Xbox gaming news, the hunt for the actor behind GTA 6’s Jason might be over (again), and Embark Studios could tease The Finals Season 3 imminently in this Reddit AMA session.