Skate (2025): Another Fortnite Clone, But This Time With A Skateboard.

Hey, been a while, I know. I just haven’t had much I’ve wanted to dive into that couldn’t be explained away with a tweet in a few weeks. Now I do. 

It was Spring break in 2010 and Geezaws was 9 years old. I remember going to a store with my mom and rummaging through a video game and movie clearance bin. I very vividly remember seeing a copy of Skate 2 among the pile. I’d never heard of the title, the game, or the franchise, I was 9 and I really didn’t care if I’d missed out on the first Skate, to be honest I don’t even think it occurred to me, so I picked it up. 

2010 was a pivotal era for Skate culture; it was finally breaking out of being a niche “public nuisance” or bona fide act of social rebellion, and started to truly commercialize. Again, I was not aware of this as Pipsqueakzaws, but the guys over at EA sure as shit were. I loaded up Skate 2 on my PS3 and played the rest of the year away. It wouldn’t be until later in 2010 or even early 2011 that I’d find out by chance that there was indeed a “Skate 3”. I was at a local game store with my dad and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it. I still have both of those copies, they’re in a box under my bed. I never let go of them, just as I will likely never let go of Skate as a franchise, or what EA BlackBox was able to accomplish in the 3 years they spent creating that franchise. 

I’d eventually pick up Skate 1 second hand years later when I was in my mid-teens and going through what definitely wasn’t a phase. I still remember my Jart deck (of which I now think there might be only one on sale in existence). In fact, I think I’d still be skating to this day if I didn’t cripple my knee by, you guessed it, skating. I could’ve gone back to skating, but by the time I was healed enough I’d gotten into Rugby and I didn’t want to jeopardize that and… eh… story for another day. 

I digress. Starting development in 2005 it would take 2 years for EA BlackBox to revolutionize a genre that had, until that point, been so single handedly monopolized by Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that it didn’t seem possible or financially reasonable to compete. We’re talking about Splitgate to Call of Duty levels of David vs Goliath. In two years, ready for 2007, Skate 1 would be introduced and capture the rough, gritty, and authentically messy nature of Skating; not as a game, as a cultural identity. It would be perfected in Skate 2 two years later in 2009 and followed up with an equally legendary, yet slightly more consumer friendly, Skate 3 in 2010. 

3 years. It took 3 years for EA BlackBox (now shuttered, go figure, fuck EA), to redefine skateboarding video games. In the decade that followed, the franchise would disappear and clones and fan projects would try and carry the torch between titles like Session and Skater XL, both of which would be adopted by “the” skating culture and Pro Skaters alike, though not quite as landmark and commercially viable as EA's ever-enigmatic franchise. If there was ever anything close to a “family-friendly” GTA, EA's Skate was it. 

And yet, the years came and went, Skating Culture would dominate the 2010s between major artists like Lil Wayne and Tyler the Creator cosigning the sport, the latter even publicly demanding the return of the game franchise multiple times. The sport would even get a nod for the Olympics which would eventually be realized years later. 10 years after the third release, EA would confirm the return of the franchise. A “reimagining” fit for “modern sensibilities”. After the decade EA has had between commercial catastrophes and being sued by an entire fucking continent for predatory monetization practices, it was natural to be skeptical. However, fans rejoiced, kids who had only heard about what Skate was like when their older brothers were their age had something to look forward to. The industry felt alive again for a fleeting moment. While the franchise had missed the commercial golden age of skateboarding, it was never too late to offer a dedicated fanbase a return to a classic. 

However, worries would grow as years went by and internal playtesting forum critiques leaked online. 5 years separated Skate 1 entering development and Skate 3 releasing. It has been 5 years since EA announced the return of the franchise, and it is only just about to enter Early Access, and what a reimagining for modern sensibilities it is, let’s take a look at the check list: 

1 - bullshit Fortnite art style 

2 - bullshit Battle Royale looking map 

3 - bullshit paid microtransactions 

4 - bullshit loot boxes 

5 - bullshit online-only game 

6 - bullshit live service 

7 - bullshit early access release 

Mhm, sure as hell sounds like a “reimagining” with “modernity” in mind. In short, it’s the full fledged realization of every theoretical cause for hesitation people had back in 2020 when the reboot was announced. In either case, no one wanted a reboot, they wanted Stake fucking 4 I’ve skimmed through far too many hours of official content provided by EA or sponsored by EA or from EA partners wiping the EA jizz off their face for long enough to say that they’re at liberty to discuss the game objectively (While this is almost certainly true and I do believe that EA told content partners that they could speak freely, it's almost certainly a situation of "you can say whatever you want and we won't sue you, but if you speak negatively about the game we will drop you from the partnership program"), and the only conclusion I’ve come to is that “Skate.” is nothing more than a shameless microtransaction hell pit designed specifically to pry open wallets sensitive to nostalgia or to extort dumb dumb babies who only touch games that look and/or play like Fortnite. 

There’s an ACTUAL clip of the “developers” saying that the game gives them a chance to prototype clothing items for real brands so that EA can forward the commercial viability of the item in game before the real company manufactures the item in real life. The entire fucking game is a commercial. There is no game. It’s an ass-fuck. I haven’t seen a single Pro Skater partnership. No Rob Dyrdek, no Chris Cole or Haslam, No Eric Koston, no Ribs Man even though EA wasted no time in appropriating his “skeletal” costume choices. The only partnerships there are are for real world clothing brands. Want “cultural authenticity”? They got uhm… uhhh vans. Y’know, the shoes real skaters largely stopped wearing after white teenagers in the mid 2010s appropriated the fffffuck out of them. It's Tilly's, it's Zumies, it's fraudulent. 

There is no “S.K.A.T.E.” minigame. There are no “Death Races”. There is no competitive incentive for the game as it stands. I imagine those will “come later”, just like how EA’s Anthem had features that would “come later”. After 5 years in development, there is no “game” here, there's a soulless open world of mundane challenges that appropriate skate culture built on the bones of a depressingly over-corporatized version of Roblox's “Dress To Impress”. The entire fucking game is about how "totes dripped out your character is, yo", the community managers have damn near said as much. Everything is about the clothes, everything. No one skates because of the clothes, they skate because they like the freedom of expression and the actual sport of it all. The shift towards fashion blending in with skating or street culture was largely fueled by high end fashion brands co-opting the 2010's explosion of skate and street culture (see: Louis Vuitton x Supreme). There were real microtransactions and a fully functioning shop built into pre-alpha testing, shows you where EA's priorities are. 

I think the worst part about it is how corporate everything feels. Which is not to say that Skate 1, 2, and 3 weren’t published by a major corporation, but it is to say that this game specifically feels so fucking board room sanitized. In previous games, the player was at odds with law enforcement, skating was rebellion and damn near destruction of private or public property. In this game the mayor of Corpocumville wants you to be good-guy-mcgee and totes bring back skating, yo, or something. Granted M-Corp is presented as a commercialized corporation hell-bent on gentrifying the sport but... I mean... come on... that's kinda EA self-reporting. 

The community facing social media team will have these live stream seminars where they spend 14 minutes talking about how “all the clothes can fit all the characters which is a huge win for the LGBTQIA+ community”. That's a huge win? In this fucking political climate? I love all my non-cishet folks but if EA of ALL companies is trying to sell you on this it’s because they’re trying to snatch your wallet. Every single gay or otherwise non-cishet person I know would rather just have a good skate game than have a unisex Thrasher hoodie that cost 5 REAL fucking dollars on their digital sims avatar. The virtue signaling grandstanding wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the game was actually good. What good is a unisex pair of online-only cargo shorts if they disappear because the game sunsets in 2 years since the game was too dog shit to have longevity with players? Just a reminder, all the real money you spent is lining the pockets of some overpaid EA semen slathered sports jacket wearing buck toothed corporate fuck who actually could not care less about whether you live or die as a queer person. 

I digress, this is not a point I want to linger on because I am cishet and I would much rather leave that analysis to people who live and experience LGBTQIA+ lives. If I'm speaking out of turn, I do apologize, but I have too been on the receiving end of "corporation that wants me to die is trying to sell me a shirt that says 'Trini 2 Di Bone!'". My only point here is that EA does not love you or care about your identity, and they’d walk over your rotting fucking corpse to pull your wallet out of your jeans if it meant they could pull another dollar out of you. 

The reason EA was begged to bring back Skate was not so that 11 year olds could have a new free-to-play shit show. It was so that people in their mid 20s and pushing 30 can reminisce about one of their favorite childhood games and wax poetic about the early 2010s and maybe, maybe, impart a time capsule of that joy onto their younger siblings, or cousins, or a next generation. Do not shit on a core player base to court a new following; honor your core player base and let them bring in new customers. This is a lesson EA cannot seem to learn for the life of them, most recently exemplified by whatever the fuck happened with BioWare's Dragon Age: The Veilguard. 

I hate that Skate has become this. I should be surprised but it's nothing more than a textbook "be careful what you wish for”. I’d rather not have had it come back if this is what it was going to be. Remaster the original trilogy and be done with it. This is a betrayal. A disgusting, violent betrayal. I literally don’t know who this game is for. This game could’ve so easily done at least 10M units at a $70 price tag and absolutely printed money for EA if they just made the game people wanted them to make. The people who wanted skate are adults now, they have jobs. Shit, some of them have families and houses. They all at least have $70 because they've been waiting for this game. But no, EA needed to turn it into… whatever the fuck it is now. 

I will not be playing Skate. when it opens up to public early access this summer, I will not play it even if EA fucking pays me to play it. If anyone reading this actually ends up sinking more than 20 minutes into the game you are a genuine fool. EA should not be rewarded for this farce with your time or energy. Fuck EA. 

Go play: 

Skater XL 

Steep 

Session 

Rooftops and Alleys 

THPS 1+2 Remastered (or 3+4)

Bombrush Cyberfunk

Play literally anything but this game. Do not support this soulless garbage.