Neversoft off Tony Hawk series

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted Jan 11, 2009 12:29 pm PT

Studio president Joel Jewett tells hometown newspaper that "It's time for someone else to add fresh ideas" to skating franchise; Chicago-based Robomodo top suspect.

After months of speculation, Neversoft Entertainment cofounder and president Joel Jewett has confirmed that his studio is no longer developing Tony Hawk games. Speaking with his hometown newspaper, the Great Falls Tribune, the Montana native confirmed that the studio has bid farewell to the series that put it on the map.

Montana and Woodland Hills' favorite son Joel Jewett.
Photo credit: Joel Jewett

"It's probably best for the franchise... It's time for someone else to add fresh ideas to it," Jewett told the Tribune. Located in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, Neversoft is now squarely focused on the Guitar Hero franchise, which it took over after original developer and current Rock Band studio Harmonix was bought by MTV games in 2006.

[UPDATE] On Monday, Activision confirmed that Neversoft was no longer working on the Tony Hawk franchise. "It's time for a new direction," said a rep who declined to comment on the series' new developer. The top suspect is indie shop Robomodo, founded last year by refugees from the closures of EA Chicago and Studio Gigante. According to the shop's Web site, it is hard at work on "a high-profile extreme sports title for Activision Blizzard."

The aforementioned game was long suspected to be Tony Hawk Adrenaline, a name first heard last June via an infamous megaleak by the market-research firm Intellisponse. The unauthorized info dump, which preemptively revealed Xbox Live avatars and Guitar Hero World Tour's neckslide, said the new game would urge PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC owners to "put down the controller, step on the board, and feel the sensation of going big. ... Shift your weight to turn and balance grinds, kick back on the tail of the board to ollie, and lean into airs to pull off huge spins."

Though Activision remained conspicuously silent about the Intellisponse leak, Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith announced last May that the forthcoming game "won't be your father's Tony Hawk. … We're very bullish on the kind of innovation this will bring." Last month, an Activision presentation confirmed that players would not use their hands to play the next Tony Hawk game. Finally, Hawk himself dropped a major hint, telling GameSpot sister site CNET that the next console games to bear his name would incorporate accelerometer technology sometime later this year.

273 Comments

  • Nicksta101

    Posted May 11, 2009 8:13 am PT

    Project 8 was a car crash for crying out loud. I miss THPS4 and THUG.

  • DarkAxe54

    Posted Apr 12, 2009 3:18 pm PT

    mitchd3 what the hell are you talking about? THUG 2, American Wasteland and Proving Grounds were the worst ones. THUG, Pro Skater 4, 3, and Project 8 were the best. I think the Skate franchise should add in freestyle, and have Rodney Mullen switch to Skate, cuz as unrealistic as it is, Rodney shouldnt we condoning it

  • triangle_button

    Posted Apr 2, 2009 3:21 am PT

    Yeh this was gonna happen. I bet if Tony Hawk could choose he would put his name on EA's Skate series. The whole TH franchise started because he wanted to make a true skateboarding game, and when the first one came out that was the case; there was nothing to compare it with!

    I'm pretty sure that as a skater himself, he would rather play skate 2.

  • mitchd3

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 11:16 am PT

    THAW,THUG1,THPS3 , and THPS4= best skateboarding games ever made period.

  • mitchd3

    Posted Mar 26, 2009 11:09 am PT

    i can't believe it's going to end like this.Everything went from bad to worse after American Wasteland when Project 8 was released.

  • Sharishi

    Posted Mar 23, 2009 8:22 am PT

    i have played almost every Tony Hawk series game and these were one of the best games i have ever played... Its a shame that the series has ended

  • screamandroar

    Posted Feb 15, 2009 2:14 pm PT

    thats surprising, oh well, after THPS 4 everything got god-awful

  • Nicksta101

    Posted Jan 31, 2009 6:05 am PT

    Martin is damn right. American Wasteland and Proving Grounds I haven't played yet but what I don't under stand is this: Why continue working on a franchise which has been the same since it came out (think about it, the only changes are new songs and new instruments) it's the same bloody game which is always awful? Why not ressurect a dying franchise into what it was, massive amounts of fun. Save us from the Anti-Christ of skating games= SKATE!

  • Martin-2-5-9

    Posted Jan 21, 2009 12:08 pm PT

    After Tony Hawks Underground 2; I felt like the series went downhill. I remember being a young child and playing THPS2 for hours on end, and they never got boring to me. Proving ground was dreadful. I hope to see a new arcade style Tony Hawks game, similar to One and two. That would take me back 10 years.

  • gregolian

    Posted Jan 16, 2009 3:24 pm PT

    i agree with hello12367890... i want another mat hoffman or dave mirra game.

  • kakarote22

    Posted Jan 15, 2009 8:40 pm PT

    Skate is better and Thrasher was better...no prepherial will save a medocre game.

  • Nintendo2Brawl

    Posted Jan 15, 2009 10:57 am PT

    yeah who cares that much if the game goes down hill nobody will probably even notice. Except maybe Tony Hawk............

  • funnysplay

    Posted Jan 14, 2009 3:25 pm PT

    This isn't bad or good news for me. I havn't played a Tony Hawk
    game since Playstation1, so i could give a care less about what happens to it.

  • Timstuff

    Posted Jan 13, 2009 3:13 pm PT

    So let me get this straight: Neversoft has gone from overmilking a franchise they created to the point where not even they want to touch it, to overmilking a franchise that Harmonix created? Thumbs up for progress!

  • sambob530

    Posted Jan 13, 2009 11:06 am PT

    That's GH: Metallica on the screen behind him

  • Cabal23

    Posted Jan 13, 2009 11:04 am PT

    Tony Hawk has Madden syndrome. What makes them think we need a new version every year? It is a skating game. I think it has been done to death and they have eeked everything out of it. Glad to know Neversoft know when a well has run dry.

  • BulletsnOctane

    Posted Jan 13, 2009 10:42 am PT

    @ Evilseed18,

    Re-read my comment, because you totally misunderstood everything I said. And just because Skate is good for you, doesn't mean it's good for everyone.


    I never said one was better than other, I said TH was a lot more "FUN", for me and apparently a lot of others as well.

  • Hott-FuzZ

    Posted Jan 13, 2009 10:10 am PT

    They really cant compete with skate so its about time they gave up. The last good tony hawk was THUG 1, it all sucked after that. They had a great run though, loved those games.

  • sk8erwarlock

    Posted Jan 13, 2009 8:26 am PT

    neversoft+tony hawk series=thing that turned me into having hundreds of wasted hour until i finally got onto a board

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