A few years ago, Vicarious Visions was said to have been working on a “Donkey Kong” title. A remake of “Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4” was also planned, but was rejected.
On the YouTube channel DidYouKnowGaming An hour-long video was uploaded yesterday via Activision Blizzard. Here, video game researcher Liam Robertson speaks of a discontinued “Donkey Kong” game.
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A 3D platformer with Donkey Kong was planned
Vicarious Visions – now known as Blizzard Albany – is said to have worked with Nintendo on a game with the iconic gorilla. A 3D platformer codenamed “Freedom” was reportedly in development. The developer legend Shigeru Miyamoto is said to have played an important role and provided valuable feedback.
Unfortunately, this project never made it past an early stage of development. It only took 6 months to work on it.
Robertson says it was the “final straw” for Karthik and Guha Bala, who founded Vicarious Visions in 1991. After the project was finally dropped in 2016, the two left the studio. In the same year, the two founded Velan Studios, where “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” and “Knockout City” were created.
Why the game was discontinued? Publisher Activision Blizzard increasingly moved away from its broad catalog in order to concentrate on the successful “Call of Duty” series.
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Offer for THPS 3+4 was rejected
For this reason, you didn't get another “Tony Hawk's Pro Skater” remake. After the successful new edition of parts one and two, it was planned to modernize the third and fourth offshoots as well. Vicarious Visions made an offer to the publisher, but it was rejected. Activision preferred to involve the studio in the development of “Call of Duty”.
Tony Hawk himself said in June 2022: The remake of parts three and four was in the works, but was canceled after the merger with Blizzard Entertainment. Activision has apparently not found another developer for this project.
In the comments of the video, former Activision boss Bobby Kotick in particular received a lot of criticism. The now 61-year-old will own the video game company at the end of 2023 leave. Shortly after his departure, a few employees expressed their dissatisfaction. They claimed that at some point the businessman only cared about sales instead of the quality of the productions.
Already in 2021 we reported that almost all Activision studios involved in the “Call of Duty” franchise. Unfortunately, the focus on high-revenue shooter IP has become the downfall of the projects mentioned above. We observed something similar at Ubisoft, where a second “Immortals” offshoot because of the popular “Assassin’s Creed” series was set.
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