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After Shutdown, Disney Infinity Dev Reopens To Make A Cars 3 Game

Avalanche Software is back and under new management.

11 Comments

Last year, Disney cancelled its Disney Infinity series and closed developer Avalanche Software. Now, the studio has reopened as a Warner Bros.-owned developer and is working on a Cars 3 game.

A scene from the newest Cars 3 movie trailer
A scene from the newest Cars 3 movie trailer

John Blackburn, a former Disney executive, will lead the new version of Avalanche Software, while Warner Bros. gets the rights to Avalanche's Octane game engine; it will be used to create the Cars 3 game.

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Now Playing: Cars 3 - Official US Teaser Trailer

"We are excited to once again be working with the Avalanche team, who have a deep understanding of the Disney Pixar DNA, and a history of translating our stories into great gaming experiences," Disney consumer products vice president Kyle Laughlin said in a statement.

No specifics about Avalanche's Cars 3 game were announced, but Laughlin said it is coming to consoles. Avalanche Software, not to be confused with Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios, made Cars 2: The Video Game, which sold "several million copies" when it came out in 2011, Warner Bros. said today.

Pixar's movie Cars 3 comes out this June, so it seems likely that Avalanche's game would launch around then, though this is not confirmed.

It was reported last year that around 300 people lost their jobs when Disney closed Avalanche. A Warner Bros. representative declined to share a specific headcount figure, but said the new version of Avalanche employs more than 100 people.

Other video game studios owned by Warner Bros. include NetherRealm (Mortal Kombat, Injustice), Monolith (Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor), Rocksteady Studios (Batman: Arkham series), and TT Games (Lego series), among others.

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BigGamerDude

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Anyone remember Pure? I got that with my Xbox and it was amazing

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BeantownSean

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Edited By BeantownSean

Sounds to me like Disney just wanted to cut some overhead...salary, health insurance, etc, all while still getting games developed.

Once the game has gone gold, had a few patches and some DLC, it'll be back to the soup line.

Cut-Throat business tactics IMO.

Really starting to hate Disney.

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chiefwiggum16

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Edited By chiefwiggum16

@beantownsean: Welcome to the crowd, I've hated em for about 5 years now. Really ever since I went to Disney World with the kids and even more so when they started releasing garbage freemium mobile games

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PlaystationZone

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Looks like warner bros repen company .

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Jinzo_111887

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I wish Disney hadn't canceled the Infinity series. It would have been nice to see stuff based on some of their 1990s cartoons like Talespin, Darkwing Duck, Aladdin, and others. I'd like to get Rebecca Cunningham, Molly Cunningham, and Mirage among other figures.

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spartanx169x

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@sellingthings: I have to think that Disney didn't like the top people there or they were getting too big of a cut from the infinity series and the only way to get rid of them was to shut the whole thing down. I'm sure it was one or the other or both. Then there is the fact that everything disney buys they spend the least amount of money on to produce/recycle a product, overhype it and collect. They don't care if its actually good or not. They know if they can produce it for less than they can sell it, they will profit. Then of course there is the whole politcal correctness crap that they are obsessed with. Star Wars EP7 is a shining example of what I have just said. BY FAR the worst of the series and was nothing more than a copy and paste of some good parts from prior SW movies. The story was crap, the dialogue was crap, but people still went at release because it was a Star Wars movie. The only people that can enjoy that movie are the ones that never saw the first 3 movies -EP 4, 5, 6. When they were first released.

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OldDadGamer

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Edited By OldDadGamer  Moderator

Yeah that "how many people are the same" is pretty key. Sure, it's called Avalanche, it has the same logo, etc., but everyone who worked there did not sit, patiently, with their hands folded at their desks just waiting to be reactivated like robots. Those people moved on, got other jobs, like people do. And I highly doubt that saying "Boom!" it's reopened is going to cause all those people to quit the jobs they got at all sorts of places and move back to Avalanche just because.

This may well be a "same in name only" situation. We shall see.

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chiefwiggum16

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Man so many IP this company has and they just file out crap after crap. At least it won't be mobile freemium crap...Hopefully it will be more like Micro Machines/ Rock n Roll racing and less of a normal racer.

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