Photographer: Troy Harvey / Bloomberg
Photographer: Troy Harvey / Bloomberg
Video Game Editor Activision Blizzard Inc. took another step in consolidating control of Blizzard Entertainment, which took pride in its autonomy by moving a 200-person design studio to its ranks.
The studio, Vicarious Visions, has been a subsidiary of Activision since 2005 and has worked on franchises such as Skylanders, Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk. He will now focus entirely on Blizzard franchises, including Diablo, instead of making his own games. Former head of studio Vicarious Visions Jennifer Oneal will take a seat on Blizzard’s management team, reporting directly to the president.
The news, reported by GamesIndustry.biz arrived just weeks after Blizzard quietly dismantled one of its internal development teams, according to people familiar with the company.
Blizzard, the maker of games such as World of Warcraft and Overwatch, has traditionally developed most of its internal games. But in recent years, the publishing arm Activision has taken over a stronger hand in Blizzard’s operations. Vicarious Visions, based in Albany, New York, has been working with Blizzard for the past year on the Diablo franchise, including a planned remake of Diablo II, said people familiar with the plans. They asked not to be identified discussing private information.
A Blizzard spokesman declined to comment on Vicarious Visions’ current projects, only confirming that the studio “has been working with Blizzard for some time.”
Until last year, the Diablo II remake was to be developed by Blizzard’s Team 1, part of the Irvine, California campus, which had become known for reviving classic games. Its latest version, in January 2020, was a remake called Warcraft III: Reforged. The title was poorly received due to errors and missing features, earning 59 out of 100 points on the Metacritic review aggregator – the lowest score ever achieved by a Blizzard game.
Team 1 members met to discuss what did not work properly. The internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg identified the game’s failures in terms of poor planning, poor communication and a hasty launch due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began pre-ordering for 2019 without informing most of the development team in advance, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged.
Team 1 wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of Warcraft III: Reforged on its next project, the Diablo II remake. Shortly after the postmortem, however, Blizzard withdrew that project from the team and led the division behind Diablo IV. A group from Vicarious Visions is also working on the remake, known as Diablo II: Resurrected.
On October 15, 2020, Blizzard informed members of Team 1 that it was reorganizing the entire division, according to people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. Over the next few weeks, team members were offered job opportunities elsewhere in Blizzard. Those who did not find positions in the company were gradually cut off. Others have gone to independent studios recently started by veterans, such as Frost Giant Inc. and DreamHaven Inc., founded by Blizzard co-founder and former CEO Mike Morhaime, whose departure signaled the start of the takeover of Activision.
Team 1 was also responsible for Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft II. Blizzard slowed down Heroes of the Storm’s development support in 2018. On the same day that Blizzard said it was reorganizing the division, it publicly announced that StarCraft II was putting an end to all ongoing developments.
Blizzard has promised to continue repairing and updating Warcraft III: Reforged, although it will likely do so with another outsourced team. A spokesman did not confirm who is in charge of the ongoing development of Warcraft III: Reforged, but said “we are still engaged in updates to support the community.”