The news of Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been the topic that has been sweeping through gaming news spaces since its formal announcement on Tuesday and will be causing industry-wide shifts in the future. In the wake of the announcement, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, partook in an 10-minute interview with The Washington Post where, among other things including the workplace issues within the scandal-ridden company, he discussed not just the company's big titles but also the future of some of Activision Blizzard's long dormant series.

Spencer says in the interview that it was Activision Blizzard's game library that was the main focus in Microsoft's strategy for the acquisition. These titles of course include industry giants like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft as well as mobile titans such as Candy Crush, but Spencer made it clear that these large properties were not their only focus. “We’re hoping that we’ll be able to work with them when the deal closes to make sure we have resources to work on franchises that I love from my childhood, and that the teams really want to get,” Spencer said. “I’m looking forward to these conversations. I really think it’s about adding resources and increasing capability.”

The call for returning series that Activision Blizzard has long since abandon has been loud and constant, with one of the main hopes coming from the announcement of Microsoft purchasing the company being that some series will make long awaited returns. Spencer lists some series that he is interested in during the interview, like King's Quest, Guitar Hero and HeXen. Some other dormant Activision Blizzard franchises not mentioned here are the likes of Radical Entertainment's Prototype series that saw its last release in 2013 as well as brand-new entries for Spyro the Dragon after Toys for Bob, a studio included in the purchase, made the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time and having also worked on Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. Toys for Bob currently serves as a support studio on Call of Duty.

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The future for franchises included in the purchase on non-Xbox consoles is still not fully known, but Spencer took to Twitter to speak about a call he had with higher ups at Sony, with the main takeaway being that they "intent to honor all existing agreements" and that Call of Duty will remain on PlayStation, which corroborates a Bloomberg report from Tuesday. This follows their trend of allowing previously announced titles and deals to continue through their purchase as seen with Deathloop and Bethesda's purchase in 2021, though unannounced titles might still up in the air in terms of exclusivity.

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard will officially close in 2023. You can find Phil Spencer's full tweet regarding Sony linked below.