Activision confirms Neversoft's 'other' title
New IP for the Tony Hawk team, due out in Activision's next fiscal year. Could this tie in with the job ads on Neversoft's website earlier this year? We'd be surprised if it didn't...
Neversoft, developer of the Tony Hawk series, is working on "a compelling new intellectual property that will bring Neversoft's world renowned development prowess to a new genre," according to a statement made in publisher Activision's latest financial report.
The new, as-yet unannounced game will be released in fiscal year 2006 (April 2005 to March 2006) in addition to that year's Tony Hawk title, and Activision president Ron Doornink has claimed it will be "the biggest game of next year".
Earlier this year, in February, Neversoft started to advertise for positions on something besides Tony Hawk, posting job ads on its website for "some other ideas", encouraging applicants to "think franchise", and seeking PS2 and PC engine programmers (and later an Xbox 2 engine programmer), online gaming specialists, artists, level designers, testers and a producer.
Given that Microsoft seems to want to get on with the next-generation and Sony probably won't be ready within Activision's 2006 fiscal year, it's entirely possible then that the game will wind up on PS2, Xbox 2 and PC. Or it might not. Right now, there isn't a great deal anyone can say for certain.
However, we'd expect to hear more about Neversoft's latest in the next few months.