Skate (4): The Anticipation is Killing It

It's been 84 years…

Skate is one of those franchises very firmly planted in the 360/PS3 era. A solid product of the time, something that I think I’d find out of place in the current generation. Three games over the course of 4 years at the midpoint of the generation. After the closure of Black Box games in 2013, EA never greenlit another skate game, and players have never stopped pleading for them to bring it back. Now, after 15 years, EA is ready to bring it back, but is it exactly what the fans wanted?

I honestly thought we had already left Skate in the past. So many times have I seen people online begging constantly for some kind of reboot of their old favorite childhood franchise that either nobody wants to keep working on, or the company and personell that initially worked on it are fired or with some other company. Skate is obviously one of those games. at some point, I imagine people stop caring. Skate 3 was 2010. This new skate game was announced in 2020. Did people who played the original still care? Or is it just the people who are in love with the memory, or the youtube videos they saw about Skate?

But now, I’ve been able to play it. So what do I think of ‘Skate’? (hereon referred to as Skate 4) Not even 10 minutes into this game, I felt something. Yes, this was certainly a new Skate game. I think any fan of Skate will be able to pick this game up and INSTANTLY click with the controls. The same controls are all here, and anything that you can remember how to do, you could certainly do here, except for a few held tricks that are already planned to come later in an update. Its so much fun on this game to just find a good spot to run a good line, or just spend some time inside some of the small skate parks the game puts around the map. I can spend so much time just in one area putting together a sequence of tricks, and shooting a replay to show off (to no one but myself, of course).

You can find plenty of clips online of people playing Skate 4 and pulling off insane sequences that break reality. Something that was super common to show off from Skate 3. I am content on reporting that Skate 4 definitely has the engine to allow for whatever type of skating gameplay you would prefer. Whether its the insane stunts or grounded skating around the streets. Funnily enough, I have seen the official Skate accounts replying to and commenting on clips that have crazy game breaking glitches that give players insane height or speed. Everyone knows the Skate 3 Speed Glitch (right?), so if the current dev team will be content in allowing harmless and funny glitches like that, then it shows the devs are hard committed to maxing out entertainment value.

The art style is one of the game’s contentious points that people are discussing. The original trilogy had a realistic and somewhat gritty look to it. It was darker and kinda scratchy or worn out. I liked that, it kinda reflected the rougher aspects of skating culture (where a lot of skating is just eating shit and scraping your elbow). Skate 3, though, I remember almost took a step forward into a cleaner corporate look to reflect its change in world design. This is recaptured in Skate 4: its clean, smooth, and features somewhat cartoony looking characters and outfits. Some people don’t like this, and I can understand that. The city itself is designed as a skater-friendly paradise filled with skate parks and easily grindable or jumpable areas. Personally, I would like a nice balance between a realistic, gritty, street-level and grounded skating experience through congested streets and tight alleyways, and the large megaramps in skate parks to facilitate the more unrealistic stunts and tricks. But the current world leans more towards the latter.

Apart from free skating around the city, there are preset challenges to partake in. Much like in the previous games, challenges are sprinkled around the map for you to complete. Several types of challenges, and they are very familiar like getting a high score sequence on a specific map prop, or in a specific area, or a new type of challenge to complete a perfect line while doing the checklist of tricks before finishing. And of course, there are “Hall of Meat”-esque challenges where you throw yourself off bridges and hit props and hurt yourself, but they aren't nearly as fun as they were in the previous games. You do get scored for hurting yourself, but the bailing mechanics seem either unfinished or just lackluster, as if they were trying to pull focus away from the system entirely. Those challenges I find to be the most boring.

That is the essence of Skate: free ride around town, and stop to take challenges. As you level up and complete challenges, you'll uncover more of the map and get more tasks. The game is technically not finished, in early access, but it holds a solid foundation of what made Skate so much fun to play. If that’s all Skate can offer, I guess that’s the most I can ask for. However, that IS just about all Skate 4 can really offer. And after playing for a little bit, Ive come to realize this isn’t such a good thing…

Skate 4 has no narrative. I know in the previous games there was an actual narrative to follow through with. Skate 2 was about becoming the best skater in town and getting sponsorships and photo deals with big brands. Skate 3 was about putting together a team and running a skateboard shop, taking advertisement and sponsorship deals to sell more boards. Skate 4 has nothing. As far as I’m concerned, you play as a phantom, a spirit of the skating gods, placed into the city of San Vansterdam purely to skate around and do challenges. A bunch of disembodied voices speak to you over (radio? cellphone? telepathy?) and say a bunch of shit like: “Yo, kid, you TOTALLY nailed that kickflip. Try this next move in this gnarly seshy,” And I’m supposed to resonate with them or something. Or I’m supposed to be excited to hit some “gnarly tricks” because of these charismatic black holes. This makes the game almost soulless to play. All you can do in the game is do those random curated challenges to level up your reputation with each region of the city. It feels empty. There are barely any NPCs, and even the other players you can see skating around can not be interacted with and may as well be ghosts you’re hallucinating.

Speaking of online interaction: Skate 4 is clearly built as an “online-first” experience designed to be always online and connected. When you hit start on the title screen, you load into a server with a bunch of random players. I do like the MMO-like atmosphere of certain regions. It is kinda interesting to just chill and sit down and just watch other players complete lines and tricks down some of the world’s popular areas. Apart from that little interaction with others, there is a shockingly small amount of multiplayer or online features here. You can party up with other players and skate together, and complete missions in co-op, and that is pretty much it. Skate is a game that should really work as an online multiplayer-focused game. The previous games worked very well like that. There is no real option to have competitive skating matches with anyone. You can elect to drop a marker to start a “throwdown,” which I will assume is a competitive game type where you compete to get a highscore in a certain amount of time. There's no matchmaking or quick match option, so I never got the chance to actually do this. I assume it's the only competitive game type the game has to offer. There’s not even the S.K.A.T.E. mode, which was one of my absolute favorite modes. There is also no way of sharing replays/screenshots in-game, no way of creating mission types, no way to create skateparks, and no way to have your own instance for skating with your friends. So many little features that were present in the previous games that would work very very well in this new online environment.

  

Progression is by far the worst, worst part of this game. I don’t usually get on games that have “bad progression” if the core of the game is fun, because obviously, you shouldn’t be playing games to “progress”, you should be playing games to have fun! But unfortunately in Skate 4, because of the absence of some kind of story or career mode, progression in the game has been entirely relegated to earning currency by completing missions and daily/weekly challenges and simply using it to purchase new outfits. Excuse me, you earn the currency so you can purchase LOOTBOXES that will randomly give you new outfits. And not whole outfits, I mean, like just individual articles of clothing. Or skateboard wheel colors. “Ah, I just got enough currency to pop open the Leggy Lootbox! Let's open this up! Aw hell yeah! I got a literal fucking trash can! That's what I wanted this whole time!”

Also, couple that with the fact that everyone is earning the same costumes and awards at the same time. So all players are going to be skating around wearing the same white t-shirts and baggy jeans.

On the same screen, huddled together with the lootboxes is the obligatory microtransaction shop. Since you might want to look different from the players wearing the white t-shirt and jeans, you can buy exclusive clothing in the shop for premium currency. Knowing Skate 4 would be free-to-play, I knew this was going to be a very prominent feature. Alongside the Skate Battle Pass, which will launch when the game goes into early access. I know developers need to make back their money when running a free-to-play game, but it will always rub me the wrong way when the in-game store is fully featured and working well, far before the game itself is fully featured. That is certainly the case here with Skate 4. Considering the game is about to be released to the public, it gives me the impression that Skate 4 is considered a complete “enough” game to give out to public audiences. Compare the current list of features to the upcoming roadmap. Currently, it's almost like a ploy to set up shop now to make money, and then we can finish the game later.

   

So, after 15 years, was this game really worth the wait? I will go with “not just yet.”… Of course, Skate 4 technically isn’t finished, but it has obviously been deemed ready to release. Even though the game feels solid in itself, the world and the selection of options available feel extremely shallow for something that is absolutely set to be compared to the games it derives from. I hate to be overly negative about video games. Especially ones that I particularly enjoy playing. Seeing the negative attention towards this game online does make me a little upset, but not at the players making rightful comparisons, but at the developers seemingly missing out on making a decent landing at this game’s soft launch by not including so many of the previous game’s famous features. Sadly, no matter how much I like how the game plays, EA and Full Circle are inviting a hailstorm of negativity down on this game that will, unfortunately, plague the air around this game for the rest of its lifespan.

Fans may not like exactly how this game will be when it drops in early access, and it may not ever be in a state that fans exactly appreciate. Skate 4 won’t be the “perfect game” fans wanted, but its definitely something to appreciate. Especially if, over time, it can be improved to a more complete state. Honestly, if you are a fan of Skate or even games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, you should be inclined to try this game out. From one Skate fan to another. The game is free after all.