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This year has been filled with bad video game industry news. Layoffs each week. 1000’s of jobs reduce. Studios closing. It’s terrible stuff. So I’m right here to share some excellent news. Toys For Bob, the studio behind Crash Bandicoot 4 and the remastered Spyro assortment, is leaving Activision and changing into an impartial studio.
In a February 29 blog post on its official web site, studio heads Paul Yan and Avery Lodato introduced that Toys For Bob is being spun off into an impartial recreation growth studio.
“We consider that now’s the time to take the studio and our future video games to the subsequent degree,” defined Yan and Lodato within the publish. “This chance permits us to return to our roots of being a small and nimble studio.”
Additionally introduced within the weblog publish is the information that Toys For Bob is “exploring” a attainable partnership with Microsoft. However don’t anticipate the studio’s subsequent recreation anytime quickly. Toys For Bob’s heads made it clear that it’s nonetheless “within the early days” of creating its subsequent recreation and are “a methods away” from saying something about it.
“Our buddies at Activision and Microsoft have been extraordinarily supportive of our new path and we’re assured that we are going to proceed to work carefully collectively as a part of our future,” mentioned Yan and Lodato. “So, maintain your horns on and your eyes out for extra information. Thanks to our neighborhood of gamers for all the time supporting us via our journey. We will’t wait to share updates on our new journey as an indie studio!”
As a part of this transition, it seems that on-line occasion platformer Crash Team Rumble will no longer be updated with new content material.
A 35-year-old studio will get to maintain on making video games
Toys For Bob was based in California in 1989 by Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford. The studio noticed success within the early ‘90s with the discharge of Star Management and its sequel, which are sometimes thought-about some of the best games ever made. Since then, it has labored on quite a few video games, huge and small.
In 2005 it was purchased up by Activision, and in 2011 it launched the primary recreation within the well-liked toys-to-life collection, Skylanders. Toys For Bob would proceed work on that collection and would additionally remaster the primary three Spyro video games as nicely develop a brand new entry within the beloved Crash Bandicoot collection.
Nonetheless, by 2021, the studio was tasked with supporting Name of Obligation, alongside every other developer owned by Activision. After Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard in 2023 and introduced 1,900+ layoffs, Toys For Bob was hit onerous. The studio misplaced 89 individuals and its offices in Novato, California were closed.
Now, nonetheless, it appears Toys For Bob will get an opportunity to dwell on. That’s one thing not each recreation studio nowadays will get to do and I hope it really works out nicely for the oldsters over there. We deserve excellent news greater than ever. I’ll take it.
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