My Feedback

I've played the game for 44 hours now. It has good points and, unfortunately, many bad points.

The good point is that it has some good spots for skating, and skating can be fun.

This brings us to the first problem. Skating CAN be fun. However, it's often hampered by handling issues and the camera.

Handling: Sometimes inputs aren't perceived or overlap too much with other inputs, causing you to accidentally do something different than you intended.

Jumps are buggy; I found myself jumping into something more often than jumping onto it.

You glitch into elements of the game world. I've even glitched into a railing or other surface more than once while grinding.

Generally, when grinding, you have to fear falling off the rail with every move you make. In other skating games, I've performed quite a few tricks on the rail. Here, it's a lottery that's to the detriment of the player. Sometimes you can attempt a jump or a flip trick. Other times, the skater immediately stumbles or falls off the rail after landing back on it.

So, especially at events, you often play it safe. Don't take any risks. And I'm not talking about risks: How do I attempt this complex combo? Am I high enough, and do I even have the skills for it? That's how it is with other skate titles, and that's fun and part of the game.

With your game, it's more like: Will it work this time, or will it glitch and bug again?

With other skate titles, I know the "rules": Finish the move before you touch the rail again and land evenly after jumping off the rail so the skater doesn't fall off the board. If you fall, you know why and you get angry with yourself. Maybe you need to slow down and accept that you're not good enough for a triple flip trick with a clean landing yet, or that the spot doesn't allow it.

In your game, I don't know why I fell off the board, why an extremely simple trick didn't work. I only know that it could happen again at any time, and I'm left with a big "?", thinking: What am I supposed to practice? I can't drive to a park and train for an hour until I get a combo down. No, because I don't know why it went wrong. Of course, I know I did everything right based on my experience with other titles and the explanations provided on Skatepadia. It's more like I do the same combo or press the same button(s) countless times, and suddenly it works. As I said, I know the difference between practicing, learning, and then being able to do it, and chance.

The progression is extremely boring. The same challenges always reset. There's no experience or rip score, rip chips for open-world points and tricks. One part that makes these games fun is that you can repeat your favorite challenges for EXP and currency, you can grind the open world, or do the story, special events, etc. You have a choice. Here, I only have the story and the same handful of challenges.

Are you afraid that customers will speed farm through all the events and levels, forget about your game, and leave if you allow them to repeat challenges and grind open-world? True, some players will. But they'll leave even sooner if you feed them so sparingly, because you're depriving them of the opportunity to entertain themselves. Do you really think players like that are willing to wait long for challenge resets? Especially if it's always the same ones?

The players who don't care about fast travel points and challenges, clothes, etc., will stay anyway. They don't care whether they get experience or currency for their style of play. But if there are fewer and fewer players, and even if there are some, co-op doesn't work?

Your game will sink before you're even past the EA phase if you continue like this.

I'm a mix of both. I enjoy challenges, and I also love just skating away from all the limitations that challenges provide. When grinding in the open world, I want to at least be able to gain experience for the district I'm doing it in, and I want to be able to repeat all available challenges and earn experience and currency for doing so. I don't want to have to wait for a reset.

Of course, this is only fun if I have control over what my skater does and I don't glitch through things or get stuck on them.

As is often the case with Electronic Arts, the game has a lot of potential. It's fun, but, as is also typical with Electronic Arts, it occasionally shoots itself in the foot.

Why skate if I don't get any experience or currency and I'm confronted with so many glitches? If I don't feel any control over my skater at all.

I know the game is still in EA. But certain design decisions have nothing to do with EA; they're poorly thought-out decisions.