Skate Early Access: Has EA Cast a Forgettable Spell, or Just Brewed a Muddle?
AI Gaming News Author · IGN South Africa ·
Jeff dives into the *Skate* early access, finding that while the core skating feel and sound design remain excellent, the game's shift to a live-service, free-to-play model has stripped it of its soul, replacing genuine personality with corporate sanitization, cringe AI dialogue, and a progression system built around insidious monetisation and loot boxes.
Right, so EA's new *Skate* early access is out, and I've been tinkering with it, trying to figure out if it's the magical evolution we've been promised or if someone accidentally turned the beloved series into a particularly bland serving of digital gruel. According to the official FAQ, this isn't a sequel, remake, or remaster – it's an 'evolution'. Fair dinkum, it's definitely changed. A lot. But sometimes evolution looks a bit like a moth blending into a sooty industrial city, losing all its sparkle in the process, eh? (A massive thank you to IGN South Africa for the original deep dive on this one, which got my wizardly gears turning. You can find their full review).
Let's be cautiously optimistic for a sec, because even in a rapidly dimming cauldron, there are a few sparks. The sounds, mate, they've absolutely nailed it. That hiss of spinning wheels, the satisfying scrape of wood on concrete, the clink of metal – it's a symphony. When you're in the zone, there's a rhythmic, almost meditative quality to it. Pops, pings, scrapes, squeaks... it's just *soothing*. And the core 'feel' of *Skate*? Still supreme. While I appreciate the arcade chaos of *Tony Hawk's* and the twin-stick precision of *Session*, *Skate*'s controls have always been my jam. Right stick for tricks, left for turning, triggers for grabs. It's approachable, yet deceptively deep once you get the hang of it. Sure, turning feels a touch stiffer, grind assist is a bit too sticky, and there's some jankiness with transition skating, but as a returning player, it's familiar enough to be instantly intuitive. They've rebuilt that buttery, street-skating magic, and that's no small feat.
But here's where my gentle skepticism morphs into a full-blown wizardly scowl. This 'evolution' feels less like a natural progression and more like a corporate spell gone horribly awry. Making *Skate* an exclusively online experience was, frankly, an immediate and utter mistake. My first session was punctuated by a swift kick to the main menu mid-challenge, an error message basically screaming, 'Something went wrong!' Yeah, mate, it certainly did. And it went wrong long before my internet connection decided to have a lie-down.
I get it, server woes and queues on day one are standard for new online games. But *Skate* doesn't *benefit* from being a live service. Its new priorities seem less about epic lines and more about flogging $25 clothing ensembles. While I was stuck in a queue, I fired up *Skate 2* on my Xbox – you know, a game that still works perfectly offline, today, tomorrow, and probably when I'm a digital ghost haunting the gaming archives. It’s almost like playing the new *Skate* is just as annoying as *not* being able to play it.
Every shred of personality from the originals has been ruthlessly excised. It’s been corporatised, Disney-fied, sanitised – from the art style to the very attitude. Remember those authentic, often sarcastic filmers and characters from the old games, who’d genuinely react as you stacked it for the tenth time? Forget 'em. Your new 'filmer' is Vee, an AI app whose dialogue is beyond nauseating. It's like a simulation of AI slop, speaking in TikTok captions and mining 35-year-old LL Cool J songs for cringey quips. 'Your female parent said knock those objectives out?' Bloody hell. I don't need to be 'edu-skated' by a chatbot that calls my tricks 'Algorithmic!' The low-fi, realistic approach of the old games is sorely missed, and frankly, a mate with a phone in-game would have been a far better solution in 2025.
The human characters aren't much better, saddled with overwrought, inauthentic scripts. The obsession with 'skater eyes' (capitalised, no less!) is baffling, repeated ad nauseam like some sort of secret superpower. And who says 'BEEP' instead of a mild curse? Everything even vaguely edgy or mature has been wrapped in corporate cotton wool, like those squishy corner protectors for toddlers. And the final indignity? No injuries. Thanks to 'ImpervaTEK' (seriously?), skaters are invincible. No more glorious x-rays and bone-snapping sounds from spectacular bails. It just feels like some suit got worried about 'optics' and decided a skate game should treat its audience like babies. *Skate 2* proved you need to break a few legs to make a skate omelette; this new version feels toothless.
Then there's San Vansterdam itself. The art style is crisp and colourful, but ultimately vanilla and boring. Those doe-eyed, *Sims*-style characters with their plastic beards and chunky pants do nothing for me. And seeing other players stuttering, lagging, and clipping through each other just adds to the visual chaos. The city itself feels sterile, too clean, not lived-in. It's largely flat, broken into indistinct quadrants, and you can cross it in about two minutes. Where's the zany hill descent? The dam drop? The wild spillway? Unlike the originals, which felt like cities you could skate *in*, San Vansterdam is basically one giant skatepark, which feels entirely antithetical to what *Skate* was all about.
Don't expect old pro skaters either. The iconic live-action intros? Gone. The real-life pros to meet and challenge? Absent. As a live service, maybe they'll trickle in, but I'm deeply pessimistic they'll bring the same personality. Is John Rattray going to have a chat with a disembodied AI app? I doubt it.
And the music? About 100 songs, but nearly 70 are from 2024/2025. Only half a dozen from the 20th century. It's a lopsided curation that completely ignores the vintage crowd the *Skate* name is supposed to attract. The campaign feels like a lengthy tutorial mixed with a service game treadmill, dishing out repetitive daily tasks. It’s designed to funnel you into collecting enough in-game currency for loot boxes, which — surprise! — also contain reputation points essential for levelling up. So you *have* to open them, sitting through unskippable 'Congratulations!' animations that feel meticulously crafted for maximum poker machine potency. And the premium currency bundles? You'll always buy more than you need. It's insidious, and it makes *Skate* feel like a store first, and a game second. My 'female parent' used to say if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. And this, mate, is a monetisation duck.
Look, there are fleeting moments where the smooth controls reel me in, ticking that dusty part of my brain that still loves booting up *Skate 2*. But these moments are constantly shattered by the cringe dialogue, bland art style, and sterile, mobile-game progression. Arming *Skate* with that buttery feel means little if the rest of it's actively trying to turn me off. It's left a horrible first impression, and I reckon the 'Fortnitification' of *Skate* might just be the most disappointing thing to happen to skate culture since those cursed razor scooters. What it'll look like in a year's time? Your guess is as good as mine, but right now, the magic's definitely missing.
Tags: Skate, Early Access, Live Service, Gaming Review, Monetization
Original article: IGN South Africa