Lack of true skater influence and intervention.

Initially, I wanted to submit this solely as feedback for the developers in hopes that the game team would consider it for future patches. Since I couldn’t find a direct way to do that, I thought I’d post it here instead to see if anyone agrees, disagrees, or has other opinions. Hopefully, someone from the team might see it and take some of these points on board.

First off, I’ve seen a lot of hate for the game, but honestly—aside from a few nit-picky aspects that are easy to overlook—I’ve really enjoyed playing. The mechanics feel super smooth and don’t limit how you want to portray your style in the game. The “steeze” translates really well (aside from transitions, but I have hopes that’s still being worked on and can be saved for another discussion).

That said, one thing I can’t shake is the cold, meta, almost cringey feel of the game’s aesthetic, narration, and overall values.

As someone who has grown up around skateboarding and has always been interested in the culture, I feel like the game misses the mark on capturing some of the true values of skating.

The biggest issue for me is that the game comes across as very “PG” (for lack of a better word). I assume this was intentional to broaden the audience, especially with gaming populations skewing younger, which in turn helps maximize engagement and profits. That makes sense from a business standpoint. But one of the core ethos of skating has always been anarchy, grit, independence, and freedom.

I’m not saying the game should be packed with sex, drugs, and rock and roll—but removing the Hall of Meat to introduce this new AR concept where you don’t get hurt feels ridiculous. I get that it’s meant to have a futuristic, superhuman angle, but come on. The whole point of Hall of Meat was that skaters pride themselves on their injuries. There’s nothing more gnarly than sending a massive trick, bailing, cheese-grating your forearm on the pavement, and then showing off that road rash as a badge of resilience. That’s skating—it’s not stopped by a little blood.

This decision reflects a broader issue: the game feels sanitized. The script, for example, comes off robotic. You’ll never go to a skatepark in real life and not hear some foul language—it’s not vulgarity for the sake of it, it’s passion. Considering all the fine-tuned options in settings, why not include a choice between a mature script and a family-friendly one? That way, players could tailor the tone to their preference.

Even beyond language, the overall vibe lacks the grit and grime that earlier Skate titles and even the Tony Hawk games captured. Without it, the game risks losing authenticity.

But honestly, what I think could be even more detrimental to the success of this game is the pricing of microtransactions.

I genuinely appreciate that the game is free-to-play, and I’m grateful for that. Because I’m essentially saving £40–£80 compared to a full-priced AAA title, I’d happily spend some money on fun in-game purchases. But the pricing feels off. £5 for a pair of shoes or £10 for a clothing bundle? When I think back to skating in real life, the whole ethos was “work with what you’ve got.” In that context, these digital items—literally just branded collections of 0s and 1s—feel overpriced, especially compared to what I’d spend on actual skate gear.

Even worse, it feels like this approach goes against a major mantra of skate culture: supporting skater-owned businesses. Now, I know the in-game store doesn’t directly relate to real-world shops, but it still sends a message. Historically, skaters have pushed back against big brands like Nike and Adidas because of how they dominated the industry and sidelined the smaller, skater-owned brands that built the culture in the first place. Similarly, if this game alienates the authentic skate-driven player base in favor of corporate-style monetization, I think it risks losing its core audience entirely.

I understand the desire to bring in a new audience, but the traditional skate audience is just as important. In fact, they’re the ones most likely to help push the game in the right direction. If the game doesn’t regard them as highly as the new crowd, then honestly—it might as well not even be a skateboarding game. At that point, it would make more sense to create a brand-new, fictional futuristic sport instead, since that would better match the direction things seem to be heading.

To add to all of this, it's even seen in some of the spot choice and design throughout the missions. You spawn me within a foots distance of the obstacle you are pushing me to skate on and expect me to have the speed and pop height to pull off even the most basic of tricks. You may argue that this is pushing you to skate your own way by using your session marker but in all honestly, I cease to believe this as one - the previous skate games never took this approach within missions and two the spot design in general a lot of the time lacks consideration, obstacles too close or too far from each other, banks with non roll-able transitions ie. step ups / curbs. sometimes it just doesn't make sense and feels as though true Skaters merely sniffed the development of the game. I'm even sure I've heard the voices of Slappy & Shingo use incorrect skate terminology for certain things which is wild considering this is one of the very few true skater aspects of the game.

Again, I don’t mean this as a slam on the mechanics or the fun factor—those are great. But I feel like these points need to be raised while the game is still in early access, in hopes that some positive changes can be made moving forward.

Thoughts?