EA ended the recent EA Play livestream by confirming that a new Skate game is finally in development.
The Skate announcement was made by game director Deran Chung and fellow Skate alumni Cuz Parry who took time to thank the fans for essentially “commenting” this project into existence. That’s a reference to the years of passionate pleas from Skate fans who felt that EA has ignored the franchise for too long.
While original Skate developer EA Black Box was formally shut down in 2013, comments made by Chung and Parry hinted that most of the old gang has stayed in touch over the years. That would tend to suggest that many of the original Skate developers will be collaborating on this new project, but the exact studio in charge of the game hasn’t been confirmed at this time.
For that matter, we know nothing about this new Skate project’s release date, platforms, or gameplay details. For that matter, we don’t even know the game’s name. We assume that it will eventually become Skate 4 or Skate (the reboot) but for the moment, we’re out here calling it “Skate game” like a robot learning program.
The timing of this reveal hardly feels like a coincidence as we recently learned that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1&2 are being remade. Given the extreme lack of details available at this time regarding this new Skate game, we wouldn’t be surprised to learn that EA didn’t actually greenlight this new project until around the time that those Tony Hawk remakes were announced.
Of course, it’s easy to understand how the Skate series has retained so many fans over the years. Not only have there not been a lot of notable skateboarding games released since we last saw the franchise in 2010 with the release of Skate 3, but the Skate franchise was always special even when compared to heavy hitters like Tony Hawk.
In case you never played it, the Skate franchise made a name for itself by virtue of its more open-ended level design, incredible customization options, and in-depth controls that offered you greater command of your tricks. We’re especially interested to see if this new Skate revives the Hall of Meat mode from Skate 2 which required you to do as much damage to your skater as possible in order to rack up a high score.
We imagine that the next Skate game will end up being released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X by the time it’s finished, but we’ll be sure to keep you updated on this project as more information becomes available.