Family Album: Activision

Thanks to a pending merger with Blizzard, the Activision family is going to be growing in the near future, but a look at their current development resources reveals that the company already has a pretty diverse galaxy of stars. With such a variety, how will you ever keep track of all the devs under the Activision bumbershoot? Worry not, dear reader.

We've got you covered.

Formerly a porting house, Quebec City-based Beenox most recently created the Bee Movie Game after being bought by Activision in 2005. The studio's now working on Kung Fu Panda for PC and an untitled James Bond project for Wii and PC.

Pictured: The Bee Movie Game

One of the newest members of the family, Bizarre Creations got adopted - err, purchased in September last year. One of the more diverse developers, it's crafted The Club, Geometry Wars, Boom Boom Rocket and the Project Gotham Racing series. It's based in Liverpool.

Pictured: PGR 4

You may know Infinity Ward from its various franchises like Call of Duty and ... well, it's pretty much just Call of Duty, and even then it's just the good ones in the series, most recently Call of Duty 4. It was acquired by Activision in October 2003. They call Encino, California home.

Pictured: Call of Duty 4

From their Santa Monica homebase, Luxoflux has created the Vigilante 8 series, Shrek 2 and both True Crime games. It was bought by Activision in 2002.

Pictured: True Crime: New York City

Another studio of all trades, Neversoft was purchased by Activision in 1999. The Woodland Hills, California-based dev has been created the Tony Hawk series and GUN. It's also behind Guitar Hero III and created the PSone version of Spider-Man.

Pictured: Tony Hawk Project 8

Responsible for HeXen, Quake 4 and X-Men Legends, Raven was acquired by Activision 1997. They're currently at work in their Middleton, Wisconsin homebase on a new, next-gen Wolfenstein game that's without a title at the moment.

Pictured: Quake 4

A subsidiary of Activision, has split its time since its 1997 founding between original extreme sports titles (Wakeboarding Unleashed) and some ports, like Tony Hawk Project 8 for PS2 and Xbox, its most recent.

Pictured: Wakeboarding Unleashed

Purchased by Activision in 2005, Toys for Bob originally made some Crystal Dynamics games like The Horde and Pandemonium. Most recently it made Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam for the Wii.

Pictured: Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam

Since it was bought by Activision in 2001, most of Treyarch's time has been divided between the Spider-Man series and the sub-par games in the Call of Duty series. It's currently working on the video game adaptation of the next Bond film, and is rumored to be on the (hopefully not subpar) Call of Duty 5.

Pictured: Spider-Man 3

Formerly known as Z-Axis, we haven't heard much from this renamed studio (bought by Activision in 2002 recently. Its last project was X-Men: The Official Game. Its also reportedly creating a PS3 port of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. (Notoriously, it was also the studio behind the adult-themed BMX XXX.)

Pictured: X-Men: The Official Game

With few exceptions, Vicarious Visions' bread-and-butter is porting games to last-gen and portable systems. It's currently working in their Menands, New York HQ on the Wii version of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and the DS's Guitar Hero: On Tour.

Pictured: Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Wii)

Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out our other Family Albums:

• Take-Two Interactive
• Electronic Arts