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Xbox head Phil Spencer is interested in reviving classic Activision Blizzard games for Xbox Game Pass and being a “custodian” for games, at least as far as Xbox Games Studios are concerned. Spencer made the comments on the official Xbox podcast a few days after the Xbox-Activision Blizzard deal closed and said Xbox’s goal is encouraging its studios to pursue projects they’re passionate about.
“I just don’t think that a team working on something that isn’t their passion leads to the best result,” Spencer said. “So I might have my list of things from my memories and history that I want to see made again. Everybody will.”
“When I just think about, not just about Activision-Blizzard-King, you add in Bethesda, you add in Xbox’s history, Rare… the amount of franchises that we now have in our portfolio is kind of inspiring,”. “It’s daunting. I feel that we have to be a great custodian for the content that we touch.”
Spencer said that when an Xbox studio does bring a game back to life, he wants to make sure they do it with motivation and a desire to work on it without a mandate hanging over them.
There’s probably a good reason for Spencer saying that. Arkane’s Redfall was reportedly made by a team that didn’t want to make the game Redfall turned into, but had no choice as first Bethesda and then Xbox pushed for a multiplayer, live-service game. Spencer then said that Arkane didn’t meet its own creative goals and was taking feedback on improvement.
He also said Game Pass provides studios an opportunity to experiment with projects that might not warrant more intensive budgets. Pentiment, the medieval mystery game from Obsidian, was one such project, a game that only exists thanks to Game Pass and found not only its niche on the platform, but critical acclaim as well.
Activision Blizzard certainly has a robust portfolio of classic games to dig through. From Pitfall and the FPS classic Hexen, to licensed games like X-Men and Star Trek, and even some more niche games, including the Lost Kingdoms RPG on Gamecube. Sure, we called it one of the worst Gamecube games, but maybe a fresh coat of paint and some tweaks could help make it a bit better.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF