With Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy kicking off the phenomenon back in 2017, Activision has been at the forefront of the remake trend for some time now, releasing several revamped callbacks to its most iconic franchises. Just this year, it dropped Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 to thunderous acclaim, selling over one million copies in its first month alone.
It seems Activision is far from through developing comprehensive revamps of its biggest titles, however, revealing through a Q4 investor's call yesterday that it intends to release new remasters later this year. As reported by VGC, the publication reveals that the major publisher is looking to capitalize on its stacked lineup of classic franchises at some point during 2021, although what it will re-release remains to be seen.
Of course, any hopes that the new remasters will include a potential Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 are slim, with Vicarious Visions controversially merging with Blizzard last month. The team was behind both the publisher's prior Tony Hawk and Crash Bandicoot remakes, managing to earn Activision a lot of money in the process. Meanwhile, Beenox worked on Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, with the fast-paced kart racer launching in 2019, while Toys for Bob worked on the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, which landed back in 2018.
Looking at what the publisher could remaster, Activision has a significant list of long-running IP in its roster that have a lot of potential, including Guitar Hero, Warcraft, and StarCraft. There were even rumors that the former members of Vicarious Visions could go on to develop a remake of Diablo 2 now it has merged with Blizzard, with Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reporting on the alleged project last month. Regardless, it seems there are big plans over at Activision to continue working on porting older games to modern audiences.
Outside of its remasters, Activision has had a fair amount of news to share as of late, recently revealing that Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 will not be launching later this year. Both games were announced back in 2019, with fans hearing little more about either in the months since their reveals. As always, the publisher will also be debuting a new Call of Duty this year, with previous iterations suggesting it's more than likely going to release during the fall. It'll be interesting to see what else the publisher focuses on during 2021, especially with the news that Blizzard's next two major projects aren't going to be hitting shelves anytime soon.