By Kara Phillips
Copyright pcgamer
Skip to main content
Close main menu
THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES
View Profile
Search PC Gamer
PC Gaming Show
Movies & TV
Affiliate links
Meet the team
Community guidelines
About PC Gamer
PC Gamer Magazine Subscription
Why subscribe?
Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming mag
Try a single issue or save on a subscription
Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From£35.99Subscribe now
Borderlands 4
Essential Hardware
Battlefield 6
Don’t miss these
Borderlands 4 review: A slice of looter-shooter heaven trapped in UI hell
EA’s new Skate game will have live service seasons, and I’m trying not to let that Fortnite-type dread get to me
I would’ve loved Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 a lot more if it hadn’t made the mistake of rolling out time limits for every level
Skate: All the key details on the skateboarding sim revival
EA’s Skate reboot will finally launch into early access in September
Mavrix is a promising sim about riding pushbikes down dangerously steep hills, but it shows the limits of open world design
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is richly authentic, intriguingly written, dripping with brooding atmosphere, and… not very fun to play, unfortunately
Fata Deum is an early access god sim inspired by Black & White, but I wish I was just playing Black & White instead
Wildgate review — A brilliant concept that’s too clever for its own good
Dying Light: The Beast review – A step down from zombie-stomping greatness
Third Person Shooter
Mecha Break review – Mech fans deserve better than this
Is Silksong everything we hoped? 5 PC Gamer writers react to the first hours of Team Cherry’s extraordinarily hyped sequel
Sword of the Sea review—Atmospheric sand-surfing with somewhat samey puzzles
Death Stranding 2 is too damn easy
Survival & Crafting
Grounded 2, even in early access, is one of the best survival games I’ve ever played
The new Skate feels like it was made by people in suits rather than people with skateboards
Kara Phillips
22 September 2025
Leaves a lot to be desired.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: EA)
After the Skate series was left alone for 15 years, I was optimistic that the fourth game would breathe new life into it. However, if you also fell into this trap and you’re yet to delve into its free-to-play addition,”skate.”, I think you should lower your expectations now. It’s certainly a skateboarding game, and it has decent bones to grow into something better, but as it currently stands in early access it feels half-baked, and could seriously improve some areas before it’s held to the same standard as the series is known for.
Being on your board is fun, which is the most important gold star a game about skateboarding can really receive. It’s also quite challenging to mess that part up. Cruising around street-skating, pulling off curb grinds and flip tricks is easily the best part, and is what I spent a lot of my time doing. After all, that’s what this whole experience is about. There is a significant “one more run” mentality, which led to a number of hours poured into runs of tricks I’m still yet to perfect.
The runs you pick up around the map are challenging, but never become frustrating. When you first head out, these are valuable in teaching you how to make the most of each area, and if you are entirely new to the series, they help in showing you the ropes. The tricks you can pull off and how you move around on your board play entirely the same as in the previous Skate games too, so you’ll easily find your footing after some warmups if you’re a fan already.
Related Articles
EA’s new Skate game will have live service seasons, and I’m trying not to let that Fortnite-type dread get to me
I would’ve loved Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 a lot more if it hadn’t made the mistake of rolling out time limits for every level
Skate: All the key details on the skateboarding sim revival
But, the enjoyment of cruising around is interrupted often by the voiceover telling you where to go and what to do. Which happens a lot, and I mean a lot. The general “guidance” (although it definitely feels more like instruction: you can’t go anywhere without being told about a nearby challenge) quickly becomes grating and takes away from what is actually enjoyable about the game.
What I loved so much about previous Skate games was that you were free to just roll around wherever you wanted and at your own pace. There were challenges you could complete but you didn’t have to race to them, and it was the sort of game you could load up and just mindlessly play for a few hours. The newest installment lacks this freedom, and instead offers something that feels far too hand-holdy and takes away the raw fun of learning to (virtually) skateboard.
You’re also expected to do a surprising amount of not-skating. At the very start of the game you’re guided to a section which is essentially a tutorial for throwing yourself off tall buildings. Where Skate fanatics would expect Hall of Meat, the series’ infamous game mode that shows you each bone you’ve broken in your body and rewarding you points for how intense your slam was, an entirely new stunt system has been introduced. It’s explained that “thanks to new AI technology” each skater has been programmed to never feel any pain. Which explains why you can essentially fling yourself off skyscrapers and dive into dumpsters, broken structures, or just straight into the concrete if you need a quick way down.
I’m not super pumped about this feature and actively avoid it where I can. It feels like a huge gimmick and takes away from the actual skateboarding, and the whole novelty of having to climb a building just to throw yourself off it for some points loses any sort of charm it had in the first place incredibly quickly.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: EA)
(Image credit: EA)
(Image credit: EA)
Its setting, San Vansterdam or ‘San Van’ as it’s referred to throughout the game, doesn’t feel particularly lively either. It’s a city made for skaters which, sure, is great in principle. But there’s so much empty space and an extreme lack of NPC’s which make it feel desolate. The cars on the road are simply there for effect too, since you can’t skitch them, and multiple areas require building your own parks by dropping in ramps and rails because there’s not much else to do outside of the challenges.
NPC interactions were never a big part of Skate games, but they helped bring the world to life. There was nothing quite like practising a trick for hours on end only to finally get your run flawless before a pedestrian walks directly in front of your skateboard and starts shouting at you. The world isn’t meant to like skateboarding, and I know San Van has been created as a safe haven for skaters everywhere, but I actually miss being a mild inconvenience to innocent bystanders, or being chased out of a shopping mall by a cop.
Other players make up the entirety of other people you see around San Van, but even then you can never really get in anyone’s way. You phase through them, and the only sense of interaction you have is through emotes unlocked through loot boxes and phrases like “follow me” and “hi” which don’t help create much of a community spirit. With that being said, I know additional co-op features are being added in the hopefully near future, which should make the experience a lot better.
As a result of all of this, Skate doesn’t feel like it was made by passionate skateboarders. It feels more like a bunch of corporate folk brought up skating in a boardroom meeting and this is the product of that. In an attempt to appeal to a younger generation, evident by the Fortnite-esque aesthetics and the emphasis on clumsy stunts and cheesy dialogue, the game has completely detached itself from the target audience. Hopefully as it changes throughout early access it’ll find itself a bit more, but for now, it’s just a game in which you skate rather than being the next Skate game we were so desperate for.
Kara Phillips
Evergreen Writer
Kara is an evergreen writer. Having spent four years as a games journalist guiding, reviewing, or generally waffling about the weird and wonderful, she’s more than happy to tell you all about which obscure indie games she’s managed to sink hours into this week. When she’s not raising a dodo army in Ark: Survival Evolved or taking huge losses in Tekken, you’ll find her helplessly trawling the internet for the next best birdwatching game because who wants to step outside and experience the real thing when you can so easily do it from the comfort of your living room. Right?
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
EA’s new Skate game will have live service seasons, and I’m trying not to let that Fortnite-type dread get to me
I would’ve loved Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 a lot more if it hadn’t made the mistake of rolling out time limits for every level
Skate: All the key details on the skateboarding sim revival
EA’s Skate reboot will finally launch into early access in September
Mavrix is a promising sim about riding pushbikes down dangerously steep hills, but it shows the limits of open world design
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is richly authentic, intriguingly written, dripping with brooding atmosphere, and… not very fun to play, unfortunately
Latest in Sports
Team Reptile announces Hyperfunk, a Bomb Rush Cyberfunk follow-up that’s ‘2 seconds per second of evolved funkstyle’
‘It would have damaged us forever’: After the calamitous cancellation of Football Manager 25, what does FM26 need to deliver?
I would enjoy Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots a lot more if everyone stopped YELLING AT ME
EA’s Skate reboot will finally launch into early access in September
Cheese Rolling is the best free Steam game about the age-old English tradition of hurling yourself down a hillside in pursuit of tumbling dairy
Denshattack is a game where you do Tony Hawk stunts with Japanese trains whose developers would not confirm whether I can make a train do a Christ Air
Latest in Features
The new Skate feels like it was made by people in suits rather than people with skateboards
Silent Hill F would be better if the combat was less enjoyable, or if there was just less combat
Five new Steam games you probably missed (September 22, 2025)
Baldur’s Gate 2 has great dungeons and epic quests, but my real love is for my fake friends: BioWare’s first truly great companions
What’s in your FPS rotation?
BioWare never stopped making Baldur’s Gate 2
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES
LATEST GAME REVIEWS
Best SSD for gaming in 2025: the fastest and the best value solid state drives to perk up your PC
Best gaming laptop in 2025: I’ve tested a ton of notebooks this generation and these are the best in every category
Best Hall effect keyboards in 2025: the fastest, most customizable keyboards for competitive gaming
Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC
Best graphics cards in 2025: I’ve tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today’s top cards
Silent Hill f review: We’re so back
Dying Light: The Beast review – A step down from zombie-stomping greatness
OcUK Gaming Mach 5R review
Razer Kraken Kitty V3 Pro headset review
Borderlands 4 review: A slice of looter-shooter heaven trapped in UI hell
PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
Contact Future’s experts
Terms and conditions
Privacy policy
Cookies policy
Advertise with us
Accessibility Statement
Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury,
BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.
Please login or signup to comment
Please wait…