EA Announcement New Skate Game Will Be Free-To-Play Garners Mixed Reactions

Following the recent testimony of everyone’s favourite gnarly dude Tony Hawk regarding why some planned Pro Skater remasters failed to come to fruition, players seeking their virtual halfpipe fix have focused their eyes on another upcoming title.

This is EA’s Skate, which promises to take the place of the long-awaited Skate 4 and, according to a Youtube video from the developers and a report from The Verge, plans to offer something a little different to its massively successful predecessors.

This new information has provoked a mixed reaction from hardened players, many of whom seem unsure of whether the changes indicated are a good thing.

Details of New Skate Game Prove Polarising

The announcement that Skate will be a free-to-play game came via a YouTube video featuring Creative Director Cuz Parry and Twitch streamer Brandon ‘Avalanche’ Thomas, in which some background is also given on the pitching process for the game and what else players can expect from it.

“What we’re talking about is an authentic evolution of Skate, the Skate franchise, but also one that reflects where skateboarding and gaming (are) in the real world,” says Parry in the video.

This is seemingly the motivation behind the change in price model, with Parry also emphasising that the game will be designed with a long lifespan in mind, saying that it will not be an “iterative title”, meaning “there won’t be a Skate 5 through 10.”

The video also confirms that the game will contain microtransactions, with Dan McCulloch, the General Manager of Full Circle, the studio working on the game, saying: “We knew that to support a never-ending, ever-evolving, free-to-play world of Skate, we’d have to look into different models for the game itself, which means that there will be microtransactions.”

McCulloch goes on to insist that this doesn’t mean that the game will be pay-to-win or feature either map areas locked behind paywalls or loot boxes.

Some of the reaction to this news on ResetEra remained cynical regarding this assertion, with user CountAntonius saying: “they are going to make a lot of money off cosmetics” and SoulofMiyazaki adding: “I've absolutely zero hope for a free-to-play Skate title working out well for consumers in the long run - it's EA after all. I knew there would be some catch.”

However, a surprising number of prospective players seemed open to the game being free-to-play, with user hydruxo musing: “Interesting, didn't expect free-to-play for this but it's a good move tbh. A lot of potential if they can keep it updated long term because a live service skateboarding game is an untapped market IMO.”

Regardless of how you feel about the move to free-to-play, make sure to follow us for more updates as the game moves closer to release.