The Weekly Grind - May 12, 2026

Welcome back to The Weekly Grind, San Vanners and Gromites! 

Let’s roll!

What’s going on?

Now, it’s May 12 and we have our very first Creator Collaboration Challenge series - and it’s with ZexyZek. Our event blog dropped so check it out if you missed it. 

• Difficult Challenges (we’re not joking - Zexy likes a challenge and customized these to put you to the test)
• The Challenges are on Isle of Grom, but there’s 4 lists of tasks to complete that are on Grom and in San Van. (Unlimited Grom access is available for skate.Premium Pass members or for non-Premium Pass members, you can get a 24 hour San Van Water Taxi pass for 500 Rip Chips.)
• Complete all the ZexyZek Task lists to get a deck, a hat, a shirt, and some pants. Crush it and you get a special ZexyZek title.

(If you are experiencing a crash when starting the Challenges and you have the in-game VO language set to French or German, switch to English while doing the Zexy event.)

We shared some info about the upcoming lighting update to hit skate. in Season 4. (We’ll have some more previews of what’s coming in S4 through the rest of May, with the Season 4 blog dropping on May 28.)

First, if you missed it - here’s what we shared regarding the lighting update for S4 on San Van and Grom.

We chatted with our Sr. Lighting Director to get more information on the changes coming for S4.

Let’s dive in.

How would you describe the Season 3 lighting?
Sr. Lighting Director: We wanted to find a more ownable look for Seasons 2 and 3, so that's why we moved toward later-afternoon lighting, a bit more toward the golden hour. You know, the sun isn't quite that low in the sky, but we wanted it to feel kind of warm and inviting, like that nice, warm, sunny, hazy afternoon.

How would you describe the shift from Season 2/3 to Season 4, and the intention behind it?
Sr. Lighting Director: From Season 2 and 3 to 4, this was a good time to introduce a time-of-day change to San Van, because we had already done a significant time-of-day change in Grom before that, from sunset to nighttime. So, we're like, okay, we need to bring in a bit more variation and move it to slightly more high noon, maybe pre-noon. So the sun moved across the sky, shifting the angle of all the downtown shadows, kind of freshening the city's vibe and giving old spots a new perspective. Some areas that used to be in direct sun are now in shadow, and vice versa.

What visual signatures define the Season 4 lighting update?
Sr. Lighting Director: For this change, we wanted more vibrant, clearer skies, a noon-time with a different sun angle, and a heavier vignette as the other main component. So if you look at a side-by-side of Season 2 and 3 compared to Season  4, the vignette is much stronger.

Why bring in a stronger vignette?
Sr. Lighting Director: We wanted to bring that in for that reason, as it centers your attention on the center of the screen, where your skater is. It gives a nice fall-off to the periphery of the frame.

Anything you can tease about Season 5 and beyond?
Sr. Lighting Director: I would just say there are exciting things on the horizon, and we're constantly expanding our repertoire of lighting moving forward.

Don’t forget: Keep sharing your bug/issues so we can squash ‘em flat. 

Let’s dive right into the calendar. 

 

Weekly Calendar

• The Weekly Grind returns (that’s today)
• Creator Challenge Starts (that’s today)
• 4x Discord Sweeps to celebrate Skate 3’s birthday
• Part 1 - May 10
• Part 2 - May 11 (Happy 16th birthday, Skate 3!)
• Part 3 - May 12
• Part 4 - May 13

Coming Up

• “Have You Seen This Person?” Screenshot Contest (May 20)

ICYMI: Free socks and t-shirts!
Don’t forget! You’ve got a free pair of black plain socks in your inventory.

Grab your four FREE community-created t-shirts before June 2, 2026! These were created from members of our very own skate community - Syph, Pariah, and Boolin - winners of the T-shirt design challenge.

More content from the skate. community!

As usual, we wanted to share a few pieces of content that caught our eye. Remember: if you want to possibly be featured in The Weekly Grind, make sure to share yours (screenshots, videos, clips) via skate.reel. 

 

Park photographer -ashlee- caught some skaters mid-sesh.

Part of The Weekly Grind will be dedicated to sharing current Known Issues the team is tracking for bugs & issues, any active deployments/fixes, and next steps. 

Developer’s Note: We’re seeing a small volume of crashes on PC related to 13th and 14th Gen Intel Processors. This is a thermal hardware issue with Intel processors, which Intel patched back in 2024, but if you were affected and didn’t download the patch in time, your CPU may be permanently damaged. This issue can cause crashes with high load applications, like video games. You can read more about the issue here and download a diagnostic tool here to see if your PC has this issue.

Known Issues Still Being Investigated:

• Month 3 task appears as Use Fast Travel Points instead of Grind or Manual Distance for non-English languages.
• The game crashes when loading into Isle of Grom.
• Duplicate Product Boxes appearing for all three neighborhoods in the store with an “Insufficient Funds” error if opened. 
• Workaround: Traveling from San Van to Isle of Grom or vice versa resolves this.
• Some Trophies/Achievements are not registering progress if the requirement is done on Isle of Grom.
• Workaround: Trophies will progress when actions are taken on San Vansterdam instead.
• Adjusting your video settings on PC can cause other settings to change.
• Character texture flickers when the Pipe Dream challenge starts.
• Players cannot grind on the rails of the Stadium parking entrance.
• Sometimes when editing in the Replay Editor, players are unable to exit.
• Workaround: Press the L stick in to hide the UI, then again to show it. This should unstick the Replay Editor.
• Speedline challenges can end prematurely while in a sequence due to final bearing placement
• The notification denoting when a friend comes online can randomly trigger multiple times.
• After purchasing multiple SVB packs in succession, an error appears during checkout.
• Skater seems to pass through the board when having specific heights.
• The game sometimes crashes when a fourth player joins your Party.
• After accepting a skate. party invite via Xbox Live or PlayStation Network, the invite reappears after the player is already in the party they were invited to.
• Spin degrees in the trick feed are sometimes inaccurate.
• Graphical glitches are present in the UI on PCs using AMD GPUs.
  • Go to AMD's driver site and find your graphics card from the "Search or Browse Drivers" section.
  • Click on "Previous Versions" and download the one labeled "Adrenalin 25.12.1."
  • Download and Run the AMD Cleanup Utility.
  • Reboot, and then run the Adrenalin 25.12.1 installer.
  • Reboot again and launch the game.
• Workaround - AMD: 
• Neighborhood Progress appears reset and previously opened product boxes appear locked.
• Workaround: Press Windows + R on your keyboard > Type: %localappdata% > Press Enter > Find the skate folder %localappdata%\skate\ > Delete or rename the folder. (Rename the folder if you have saved replays or screenshots).
• Activity count on Isle of Grom zone entrance menu shows incorrect total amount of completed challenges.
• Flags on Isle of Grom unintentionally can cause your skater to bail.
• Coffin Air 540 in the Waterworks OTL Challenge often fails to register the goal as completed.
• Players often don't receive notifications for completing and progressing tasks.
• Workaround: Visit the Task Menu and restart the game.
• Quick Ollie has incorrect height and forward boost when performed during grind.
• Players can hear pedestrians after turning the setting off.
• Returning to the session marker while 'getting unstuck' can get the player stuck on a black loading screen.
• Workaround: Restart the game.
• HUD disappears after starting a Challenge.
• Workaround: Restart the game.
• Performing a dark catch, followed by a grind and ending with a dark flip, won´t count as "flip trick to grind to flip trick" for challenge criteria on the challenge "Street Dreams".
• Scorp tattoo has incorrect thumbnail.