Update on Activision Blizzard Games

Earlier in the week, reports emerged about what games Activision Blizzard had confirmed as keeping after their merger with Vivendi Games. This list was a little disturbing to some gamers who didn't see their anticipated game in the list of five games. I held off on blogging about it until some more information came out/was confirmed.

The five games/franchises which are confirmed as still on the way are:
- Crash Bandicoot
- Ice Age
- Prototype
- Spyro
- an unannounced title

I think Prototype looks good, and the other games are guaranteed to make a certain amount of money(other than the unannounced title, of course). But many noticed some glaring omissions. Two of the big names missing are Ghostbusters and Brutal Legend.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has the license to the Ghostbusters game and has officially confirmed that they will still get the game published. The real question is who will publish it and will this affect which systems the game releases on. Sony is also using this development to delay the game's release until 2009 so it can coincide with the 25 year anniversary of the movie Ghostbusters.

Double Fine is the developer behind Brutal Legend, and the game is being helmed by Tim Schafer, made famous from his work on Psychonauts. They say that they will still put out Brutal Legend and are close to signing with a new publisher.

The Bourne license was also cut by Activision Blizzard so all of the gaming rights revert to Ludlum Holdings who have stated that they plan on making more Bourne games in the future with a different publisher.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand was also cut from the Activision Blizzard lineup. So far, developers have been pretty silent on the fate for this game. Normally, I wouldn't care about this game because the first one seemed like it sucked, but there was actually some independent reviewers who had some good things to say about what they saw from this game. Still, if it dies, I won't shed any tears.