Activision
Activision canceled a 3D Donkey Kong game and more Tony Hawk collections developed by Vicarious Visions
The publishers behind Call of Duty canceled two huge games that were being developed by Vicarious Visions, including a new 3D Donkey Kong game.
It’s time to learn about incredible games that were on the table but never materialized. The list of canceled projects is endless, and although companies are not always transparent with the discarded titles, information about them does come to light on some occasions. Vicarious Visions, one of Activision’s studios, recently merged with Blizzard Entertainment and will no longer be the lead on any development. But as it turns out, the developers behind Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy were working on at least two new titles that were left in the cutting room floor indefinitely. This was corroborated by Liam Robertson, a historian specializing in video games, in a video by Did You Know Gaming: a Donkey Kong game for Nintendo Switch and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4.
A new 3D Donkey Kong title from the developers of the Crash Bandicoot revival
Internally known as Freedom, one of the canceled games was a platformer for Nintendo Switch in the style of Donkey Kong Country, but in three dimensions. According to the published details, it was not similar to Donkey Kong 64, as it was more focused on obstacles and swinging (via DKVine). One of the key mechanics was called “vine grinding” and was seemingly inspired by Tony Hawk’s grinding. Miyamoto was involved and expressed his concern because good old DK would suffer abrasions on his feet when sliding down the vines, so the studio decided to protect him with banana skins, something that the character’s creator liked.
Among the characters present in the canceled title were also Diddy Kong and Rhino. More surprisingly, Pauline—the damsel in distress from the original 1981 Donkey Kong—was going to make an appearance. A source assures that the character was going to be redesigned to fit with the evolution of the saga so far. He describes her as a kind of Jane Goodall, a human living among apes and protecting them from humans.
Donkey Kong Freedom was canceled in 2016 because it was no longer a priority for Activision, which preferred that Vicarious Visions be in charge of supporting other projects such as the development of Destiny 2. On those same dates, the two founders of the studio, brothers Karthik and Guha Bala, left the company to found Vela Games.
The cancellation of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4
At first, the possibility of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 including the third and fourth installments was considered. But plans changed when they realized they didn’t have time.: “we settled on adding some handling features from the later games to reflect the way people remember the old Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games,” commented a Vicarious Visions source. “The improvements from 3 seemed to bleed into people’s memories of the first 2 .”
Despite all these ideas, the developer had to shelve the idea due to her other commitments. “it became clear that we didn’t have time for more than 1 + 2, so the idea [was] that we’d continue on and release 3+4 in some fashion, [if it] was on the table”. We can’t forget that Tony Hawk himself confirmed that the project was underway: “We were going 3 and 4, but then [Vicarious] was absorbed, then they looked for other developers and in the end it was over.”
Neither one nor the other, the remains of Vicarious Visions are now tasked with working on Blizzard projects only as a support studio.