Skate: hands-on report

Fifteen years since its last release, the Skate series returns with an entry that turns a whole city into a skater’s paradise. The newest Skate is a free-to-play open world where you can take on a series of challenges, spectate other skaters, team up with friends, or challenge other players to throw down and trade tricks.

Electronic Arts pulled the curtain back on Skate with a hands-on preview of Early Access ahead of its September 16 release. I shredded and slammed across the city of San Vansterdam for nine hours and saw a whole lot of what developer Full Circle has to offer. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty.

Flick-It returns — When it was released back in 2007, Skate introduced the “Flick-It” control system, where executing tricks is done with fast flicking movements of the right control stick, to better simulate the sense of pulling off ollies and kickflips. Full Circle says that it didn’t rebuild Flick-It, it “resurrected” it, with improvements to the controls to make them easier to learn and use for newbies, but with all the nuance veterans expect.

Flick-It comes with three control schemes. The Streamlined version makes snapping off tricks intuitive and a bit easier than in previous games, with flicking up on the right stick enough to ollie and your character pushing your skateboard automatically as you steer with the left stick.

Classic feels familiar to Skate fans—pushing the skateboard is done with Square or X, and you need to flick the stick down to set and then up to jump, with lots of different patterns for more complex tricks.

Finally, there’s the Experienced level, which provides even more nuanced control but removes the Flick diagram from your screen.

If you need a hand remembering the moves, Skatepedia is always just a menu away to show you how to do every trick in the game.

A city of skating — San Vansterdam is a big, open place, and the game dots many locations with challenges to put you through your paces.

Lines task you with doing tricks and hitting a certain score along a specific series of obstacles, grabbing icons along the way.

In Own the Spot, you’re looking to hit a high score in a location, while trying to knock out a certain set of tricks in a single sequence.

Session gives you a free-form, timed opportunity to rack up a high score in a larger location.

And in Stunt challenges, you fling yourself off high places and ragdoll through ridiculous requirements. These ones were my favorite of everything I played in Skate, and they’re always hilarious.

There are also missions that will teach you the ropes of how to play and perform different tricks if you’re new to Skate

Parkour and Exploration — Finding skate spots off the beaten path is another big part of the fun of San Vansterdam. You can hop off your board anywhere by hitting Triangle and then use X to jump and climb walls or scale buildings to look for new places to Skate

San Vansterdam also has rotating community parks you can find around the city, so there’s always something fresh to Skate

Quick Drop lets you make your own spots — You’re not stuck skating the spots and challenges the developers have created, either. Pressing down on the D-pad opens up your radial Tool Box, where you can find the Quick Drop menu. You can instantly add your own ramps, grind rails, and other objects to any location to create your own spots, or improvise a solution to a problem, like jumping a big gap. Other players can skate your Quick Drops, too.

Progression and Customization — Clearing missions and leveling up your reputation in each neighborhood unlocks new customization and drop items. Credits you earn from rewards can be used to buy more random cosmetics from each neighborhood to unlock new looks, decks, and other options.

Spectating and Spectaporting — The big benefit of Skate’s always-online, free-to-play nature is you’re constantly able to play with other skaters. Tapping the Touchpad on your DualSense controller brings up the map and menu tabs, where you can find your social options. Here, you can see everyone else in your server, spectate what they’re doing, and even instantly “spectaport” to their location to say hi or skate the same spot. Full Circle says servers will support up to 150 players at a time, so there will always be other people skating San Vansterdam with you.

Replay editor — It’s quick and easy to create clips of your best moments (or most painful fails). You can access the Replay Editor from your Tool Box menu at any time, which captures the last few minutes of your session and lets you edit, save, and share videos.

Grabster — One of the cooler ways skate makes San Vansterdam feel alive is by supplying it with a ton of diegetic music, coming from everything from store displays to passing cars’ speakers. You can grab any song you like by holding R3 to add it to your personal playlist.

Even over just a handful of hours in San Vansterdam, it’s clear Skate puts a ludicrous amount of skating opportunities on offer, with plenty of ways for players to have fun together and get creative, as well.

The good news is that you can see for yourself when Skate hits PlayStation 4 and Playstation 5 in Early Access on September 16.