Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is one of the best skateboarding games ever made. The remake of the first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games managed to perfectly find that ground between how we all nostalgically felt the games should play, while also modernizing itself to feel really good on modern day consoles. The result was a game that both longtime fans and newcomers to the franchise could play and enjoy. Those of us at UPROXX loved it so much we made it our Game of The Year for 2020.
Afterwards, the immediate question on everyone’s mind was if the other two Pro Skater games, 3 and 4, would get the same treatment. Unfortunately, despite the success of Pro Skater 1+2, the developers of the franchise — Vicarious Visions — were later merged into the Blizzard umbrella of Activision Blizzard. We never heard about any more remakes or sequels after that, and it was assumed that the merger ended any chance of a sequel ever happening.
Unfortunately for us fans of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, it sounds like that’s exactly what happened. Recently, Tony Hawk appeared on a Twitch stream with streamer andyTHPS. Hawk was asked about the status of a Pro Skater 3+4 and he explained how the merger of Vicarious Visions into Blizzard eventually led to plans for a sequel getting shelved.
“I wish I could say we had something in the works, but Vicarious Visions got kinda disbanded. Activision is going through all their stuff so I don’t know what’s next.” Hawk said on stream. “I mean, that was the plan. Even up until the release date of this, we were going 3 and 4. Then Vicarious got kinda absorbed and they were looking for other developers and it was over…the truth of it is they were trying to find someone to do 3 and 4 but they didn’t really trust anyone the way they did Vicarious. So they took other pitches from other studios like ‘what would you with the THPS title?’ and they didn’t like anything they heard and that was it.”
If anyone is going to have the inside scoop on what is going on with the franchise, it’s Tony Hawk. Not only because it has his name on the box, but because he’s always been very closely involved with the direction of the franchise. From the game’s earliest days to even now he’s always been allowed to have his voice heard on what direction developers were going to take the franchise. So we know that everything he is saying on stream is close to if not how the entire situation shook out.
For anyone that is looking for a glimmer of hope, Hawk didn’t say that there was no chance of ever making a game again. He mentioned that Activision tried pitching the franchise to other studios, but nobody came up with a good enough pitch to gain the opportunity to make another game. Maybe we will get Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 someday, but it’s still extremely disappointing to know that one is definitely not in the works for anytime soon.