Yesterday it became known that Vicarious Visions (the authors of the successful remakes of Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater) became part of Blizzard. The studio was reorganized and assigned to work on a remake of Diablo II.
All 200 employees of Vicarious Visions joined Blizzard for full-fledged work on existing and future projects of the company. The head of the studio Jennifer Oneal will take the position of vice president of Blizzard development and will report directly to the president of the company.
“After working with Vicarious Visions and establishing a good relationship, Blizzard realized that this is a great opportunity for the studio to provide us with long—term support,” said a Blizzard representative.
Anonymous sources in the company told Bloomberg that a few weeks ago Blizzard just dissolved one of its internal development teams and commissioned Vicarious Visions to work on a remake of Diablo II. She will work on it together with the division that is currently developing Diablo IV.
The project, known as Diablo II: Resurrected, was originally created by a Blizzard division called Team 1. They were also responsible for the failed remake of Warcraft III: Reforged, which received the lowest ratings in the company’s history.
Journalist Jason Schreier studied Blizzard’s internal documents, in which the company discussed the reasons for the failure. Among them are poor planning, lack of normal communication and a hasty release provoked by management pressure.
Team 1, who had also previously worked on Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft II, wanted to avoid these mistakes when working on the remake of Diablo II. However, Blizzard reorganized the team and eventually completely dissolved it, giving employees the opportunity to take other positions within the company.
Those who could not find a place for themselves moved to independent studios — including Frost Giant and DreamHaven, founded by people from Blizzard.
Activision bought Vicarious Visions in 2005. During this time, the studio managed to work on the franchises Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, Destiny and Call of Duty.