After lying dormant for 15 years, the skate. franchise is back. On September 16, skate. arrives in Early Access and we've had hands-on time with an early build of the game to see if this long absence holds promise.
The existence of skate. in 2025 feels like a fluke. It’s been 15 years since Skate 3 and the fervor for the series’ revival has almost felt like a joke… especially with the hypothetical “Skate 4” being revealed in 2020.
And as highly desired as I’ve heard a new Skate game is, I have no foothold in any potential hype. I’ve never played a single entry in the series. Revered or not, I have a loose attachment to most sports games. In middle school and high school I dabbled in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and the recent release of Pro Skater 3 + 4 cemented my appreciation for the series and its cultural significance.
Perhaps now is the best time to experience the Skate series; not only for newcomers like myself but to anyone genuinely curious about skateboarding culture or games centered around a particular sport.
What makes the bar for entry so attainable in skate. is the fact that when the game releases into Early Access on September 16, it will be free to play. For a game so long in gestation and already the subject of early playtests, it’s fair to wonder how developer Full Circle will manage to satisfy the cravings of die-hards while also crafting something broadly accessible. To help answer some of my questions, I was able to have hands-on time with skate. in the period leading up to the game’s Early Access launch. And I walked away not only curious but impressed by the path skate. is taking towards a complete release.
For me, the biggest selling point to skate. is the sense of freedom provided by the premise of both its setting and its core gameplay. And it is also what differentiates the experience from what I would say is its biggest contemporary in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
To pull off tricks in skate., players use the “flick-it” system which has been the control scheme of the Skate games used since its inception in 2007. Simply put, a trick on the skateboard is executed by pushing the right stick of the controller in varying directions and letting it “flick” back to the center position.
A simple flick upward or to the left in one direction executes a simple ollie or kick-flip. More complex tricks require the player to almost draw a design with the stick, perhaps moving it up, clockwise a half turn, and then back up to the center. Thankfully, a “Skatepedia” is included, providing a handy guide to showing players what stick movements are required to pull off a trick.
I loved this system in skate. because at its core tricks feel effortless. Looking cool is based more on a player’s manipulation of the right stick rather than numerous button combinations. While I appreciate the style and arcade-like feel of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the sheer number of moves a player can pull off feels daunting and takes a lot of practice to master, in addition to several button configurations. Boiling skate.‘s tricks down into a directional pull means the player’s focus on hand/controller movements is centralized.
It’s easy to see why this system made the Skate series so beloved, as skate.‘s generous and easy-going tutorial instantly made me feel confident rather than overwhelmed. In fact, skate. reminded me of one of my favorite sports/skateboarding series of all time: OlliOlli. Roll7’s incredible system was also based on manipulating the control sticks to perform tricks but on a 2D plane.
What the flick-it system does at its most basic level is allow players to mess around with timing and movement. There’s not any deep memorization required, just playing around with the right stick. Mastering more complex tricks merely feels like knowing when you have enough air and speed to execute a quick manipulation of motion.
skate. takes place in the fictional city of San Vansterdam, a horizontal and vertical haven for skateboarding enthusiasts. It’s here in this “open world” structure that all the systems Full Circle have worked on really come alive.
Firstly, the ability to hop off the board and run around on foot provides a lot of interesting opportunities for players to explore what San Vansterdam has to offer. The city is meant to be a playground with ramps on skyscrapers, parks packed with rails, streets to trick on, and several other random locations and points of interest that have been blown out to be fun to skate in. The player character is a regular Nathan Drake able to scale walls and keep finding new opportunities for fun.
But San Vansterdam doesn’t feel overly busy either. All of these elements are weaved together in a way that can be somewhat surreal but always meant to have the player close to potential action. And what makes all this more involved is the online and community aspect of skate.
While there might be frustration for the game’s always online requirement, there is a thrill in knowing that a session can be populated by countless other players–over a hundred if I remember correctly. A sense of community can easily be built by players heading to their favorite spots and getting in some friendly competition with others.
And skate. is designed to have others involved in your world. Quick Drop allows players to place obstacles, rails, ramps, and other things instantly into San Vansterdam to make mini-spots that can be a reflection of your creativity or thirst for challenge. Community events, spot-specific leaderboards, and even editing replays all fuel a sense of thrill and engagement.
Being free to play is the chief way that Electronic Arts and Full Circle are creating minimal friction with skate.‘s community. Curious? There is almost no bar for entry. This allows servers to be populated and the health of the game to remain vibrant with player creations and challenges setting a cadence for content.
As it stands, Full Circle is committing to a seasonal model for skate. where new content will be delivered to players at a hopefully solid pace. Not only does this include customization options but also new trick sets and moves to continue providing fresh and exciting content. While the decision to hold back actual tricks may be strange, I think it makes sense. The massive size of San Vansterdam and the potential for player-generated content is vast. And as players familiarize with skate.‘s wealth of tricks, adding new ones in the coming months provides a good reason for players to keep returning for more content and finding new ways to make challenges.
Having free roam of San Vansterdam and such control over my customized skater made me see how chill the vibes are with skate. so far. The ability to hop off the board and run around gave me time to breathe and take in surroundings and not have to fight with the controls. skate. comes across as a sandbox the player should feel welcomed by.
I’m not sure how the visuals of the game will evolve from Early Access to full release but the colorful palette of the game isn’t cartoony nor overly realistic. It does give Full Circle ample room to design cosmetics that can pop in a player’s quest for personalization. Of course, when the game launches next month, there will be several reward tracks that didn’t seem all too confusing to me. Grinding for challenges and rewards shouldn’t be demanding, much like the way skate. feels to me right now. I especially appreciate that Full Circle claims new music will cycle in and out of the game as seasons continue.
skate. seems to be hitting the right trajectory for what Full Circle wants to offer players. And after several hours with a build of the game, it holds a lot of promise. For someone like me, I want to board around a massive map and goof off. The tricks I want to execute should be easy and maybe a bit ridiculous. And skate. provides those avenues for casual fun but also more technical and performative skating. It will be exciting to see the game evolve with community effort, especially if Full Circle is constantly listening to feedback and working with its players.
skate. launches into Early Access on September 16 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One & PC via Steam, Epic Games Store and EA app.
