News
Neversoft Hands Off Tony Hawk Series
After a Decade With the Franchise
We reported on this as a rumor over seven months ago, but today it became official. Neversoft, the developers behind the first nine Tony Hawk games, announced in an interview with the Great Falls Tribune that thy would be handing off the prolific series to a different developer. The reason for the change, said Neversoft co-founder Joel Jewett, was to allow Neversoft to focus solely on the development of the Guitar Hero franchise. No new developer has been named for the next iteration of the series, but Jarrett feels certain that the move will be "best for the franchise." Robomodo, an Activision publisher primarily made up of ex-EA Chicago employees, is rumored to be the developer in question, based mostly on their September claim to be working on a “high-profile extreme sports title," but at this point it’s still just a rumor.
I have owned and played to completion the first eight games in the series, but with the release of EA’s Skate, I elected to skip this last game. I did get a chance to play it, however, and despite my love for Skate, I still found Proving Ground to be a fun and perfectly capable skating game. That being said, with its annual, incremental improvements, I do feel it’s time to wipe the slate clean and start the Tony Hawk franchise from scratch. A new dev could be just what the series needs to keep up with EA’s skating sim.
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Comments
i tried so hard to get into the last few Tony Hawk games but they have all just been the same old boring recipe to me and with Skate breathing a fresh air into the world of video game skateboarding, i don't see myself ever going back to Tony Hawk unless they make some pretty drastic changes.
The last Tony Hawk game wasn't even bad, better than Project 8, I thought--but not comparable to Skate. You are right about that game being a breath of fresh air, Voyou, and it's probably a good thing that Tony Hawk is taking a rest right now.
It's has been stated in tons of articles about Skate moving up to replace the Tony Hawk series and I agree.
I liked and played Tony Hawk but after few series, you can see that the developers were running out of creative ideas, and just slap Tony Hawk's name on the box and hope that it would sell. As for Skate, it was fresh, new,and exciting.
To me this is the equivalent of Uncharted to the Tomb Raider series, out with the old and in with the new.