The Grind: Vol 5
Welcome to The Grind: Vol 5! Can you believe it’s already the middle of August? We’ve got some details to share to get you ready for Early Access — remember, coming at the end of this Summer (Northern Hemisphere) — as well as some Playtest details and some questions submitted by you, the skate. community. This volume of The Grind is gonna touch on customization, music and sounds in San Vansterdam, and we’re going to share a bit about our Seasons (starting shortly after Early Access drops) and the skate.Pass. At the end of July, we invited over 1 MILLION skate. Insiders to join us in San Vansterdam, and it’s been wild. We’ve got up to 150 folks in each server, throwing down, completing Challenges, having fun. With Early Access coming soon, it’s going to be insane! I’m seeing videos - when can I record/share/stream? Reminder: the Council and some creators were given special access with a watermarkless build, but the NDA is still in effect for all Playtesters. We know you’re excited — we’re excited to see your content. We’ll be lifting the NDA before Early Access, so keep your eyes peeled for that NDA-lift announcement coming near the end of the month. Customization The Skate Shop offers (optional) premium cosmetics for purchase using San Van Bucks (or “SVB”) to customize your character beyond the free rewards you'll receive. You will see exactly what you are getting when you use SVB in the Shop. As we’ve mentioned in previous volumes of The Grind, there's a lot to unlock by simply playing the game and earning rewards -- we'll talk a bit more about that below. When you first load into skate., you’ll need to create your skater. First, you set up your appearance. Choose your build, height, body shape and size, and more to customize your look, then hit that right bumper to choose Locomotion (how you move off-board through San Vansterdam). Next up is your face shape — and there’s a lot of options. After that, pick your hair style, color, and shade, then slide over to your eyebrows to make your selection. Eyes, nose, and mouth are next, and you can choose facial hair and color if you want. Select your skater’s voice, and you’re done. Now it’s time to get dressed. Apparel, Accessories, and Boards are where you set your style. Starting off, you’ll have just a few options, like the “I ♥️SV” shirt, some basic pants and shoes, and basic deck setups (design, griptape, trucks, wheels). That’s where those Challenges and Missions come in. Complete Challenges to earn Rip Chips (only earnable through gameplay) and then hit the Shop to turn those Rip Chips into gear. Open a box of gear with your free Rip Chips to get great cosmetic rewards and also up your Rip Score, which will unlock even more items. With each tier of the Rip Score AND each tier of your Neighborhood score, you get more items to customize your skater with (hats, helmets, shoes, socks, shirts, pants, shorts, skirts, decks, trucks, stickers for the decks, grip tape and grip tape designs, and more). But wait! You’re not done! Quick gestures are customizable, so check out the Gestures option to select which of the four Quick Gestures you wanna have locked and loaded. DID YOU KNOW: You can do Gestures while pulling tricks in skate. - like this one. (You can even Gesture when you’re flying through the air. Warning: The flapping wings gesture does NOT make you fly better.) Music in San Vansterdam As mentioned in The Grind: Vol 4, we’re taking some time to discuss music in San Vansterdam. First, the soundtrack is big — like, 100 songs big. The team focused on emerging artists and threw in some deep cuts to help you discover music you may not have heard yet. You can browse the soundtrack by pressing down on the D-Pad and then highlighting the headphones icon. From there, you can choose the Playlists you want to jam out to when cruisin’ the streets of San Van. You’ll see the main soundtrack in the Featured section - split into three playlists - DO A KICKFLIP!, SV Local Classics, and Down Low Radio. See that one titled San Van Jams? That’s the skate. community favorites - based on the songs most liked by all players across all platforms. You can favorite whole playlists or individual tracks to make your own favorite playlist, and you’ll see them appear in the Liked section. You can use the left and right triggers to adjust the volume, if you want it blasting or if you need it to be a little subtle. When in the world, you can mute the speakers by pressing d own on the D-Pad (to open the Quick Access wheel) and pressing Y (or Triangle). And you can discover music just by skating around San Van - you’ll hear it blaring out of speakers in skate spots, teasing you from the top of buildings, and even from passing cars. Just run up and use Grabster when prompted (hold down on the L stick) to collect it! It will show up under the Newly Discovered category in Grabster. And if you’re liking the soundtrack, stay tuned! The team will be adding lots of new tracks every season - and making sure the ones you listen to and favourite the most stay in the game for longer! Now, we know music is a part of skateboarding culture - and not one specific genre or style, but all types of music (just like there’s all types of skaters and all types of gamers). Our music team is currently curating the skate. Soundtrack (coming soon to Spotify), but we wanted to drop a sample of some of the artists right now to get you vibin’ and ready for Early Access. Some Artists from the skate. Soundtrack Turnstile Denzel Curry Little Simz Skegss Earth, Wind & Fire MF Doom Just a little taste, a tease of some artists on the soundtrack, and there’s a LOT more. The soundtrack for Early Access will have around 100 tracks, and we’re just getting started. We’ll share the Spotify link soon, so stay tuned to our official social and community channels. Seasons and the skate.Pass We’ve mentioned seasons a few times in The Grind. You’re probably wondering, “How will skate. do seasons? How long will they last? When do seasons start? Is there a skate.Pass?” Quick answers (full details coming in The Grind: Vol 6 next month): Yes, skate. will have seasons and seasonal content. The world, game features, in-game events, and even the soundtracks will be updated to celebrate each season. On average, the season will last about 3 months (so we’ll have 4 per year, like a real calendar!). Our first season will start shortly after the Early Access launch, and more information will be available next month in Vol 6 of The Grind. With each season, we'll be adding new cosmetics and customization items, more music, and more to do. We will have a skate.Pass - with a paid and free track with various rewards, Seasonal Challenges, and activities to keep you on your board. Stay tuned - we’ll have all the details about our skate. Seasons and the skate.Pass next month, so get ready! What’s happening with the skate. Insider Playtest? As of June 27, we closed sign-ups for the skate. Insider program. From the time we opened up sign-ups in 2022 to June 27, 2025, over 1 MILLION future San Vansterdam citizens signed up. And we spent all of July getting invites out to everyone who did sign up. Signed up but didn’t get an email? Are you sure you checked the right email? Quick reminder: Our official Discord is not the spot to share feedback, bugs, and issues - but we DO want you to share them with us. If you’re a playtester, head to the Playtest forums and let us know what’s going on. The feedback we’ve received already helped us get to 0.27 and 0.27.5 (coming soon!), so keep it up! Thanks for coming with us on the road to Early Access - we’re getting closer every day. Let’s dive into your questions. Keep them coming! Your Q’s, our A’s. What can you tell us about the future of the game's visuals? It’s important to remember that Early Access is just the beginning. Everything from the gameplay to core features to visuals will continue evolving and improving during Early Access and beyond. This is a new game, a new world, and we’re excited about where it’s headed. We think this is the best skateboarding experience we have ever created. Will the visuals change over time? Absolutely. You'll see the characters and world evolve to include even more detail and personality through our future updates. Thanks for your continued support. While we can’t respond to every piece of feedback, rest assured that we are listening. Is early access free? And if so, does everybody get it or is there a way to ensure I get in? Early Access is absolutely free-to-play. Everyone who wants to jump into San Vansterdam when Early Access launches is welcome! Was wondering if it would be possible to implement a type of party finding system for co-op missions? Playing together in the open-world of San Vansterdam is so much fun, from Throwdowns to Co-op Challenges. As we continue to improve and develop skate. through Early Access, we’ll look into more ways to improve the social experience and co-op/group play. Will server sizes increase even more? It would be crazy to have like 500 people on one server. It would be crazy - not sure if it’s the crazy we want to ensure stability. That being said, with Early Access, we’re just getting started and crazy ideas may make sense down the road. Currently, our sweet spot is up to 150 skaters per server, but that could change in the future. Will any extra skaters be available to play as like in previous games? Any pros? skate. is all about you and what you're doing in San Vansterdam. That being said, it doesn't mean we won't see the occasional new visitors in San Van sometime in the future. Will we be able to re-enter the tutorial area and explore it freely? It’s so cool; I would like to go back like in Skate 3 going back to Skate School. “I’m going going, back back, to the Isle of Grom” is definitely a jam, and we will be opening the Isle up at some point during Early Access so you can refresh the basics or get crazy, Isle-style. Are there going to be any collab's with show's, movies, etc.? Through skate.’s live service, we want to bring a lot of events and experiences through the Seasons, so we’ll share more as we get closer to the seasonal drops whenever we might incorporate these elements. Are you looking into custom/player-created gear or designs? We don't have something to share today, but this is definitely something the team is very excited about. When we have something concrete to share, like a timeline, we'll make sure to let you know. Don’t forget to drop your questions in the Q&A channel in The Grind category of Discord, and we’ll pull some to answer for our next volume of The Grind. Join the community at https://discord.gg/skateEA. See you in San Vansterdam, The skate. Teamskate. Playtest Milestone
We're stoked to announce that, with over 1 million playtest sign-ups, we're celebrating skate. as the biggest playtest sign-up in EA history! And for that, we have to say a huge THANK YOU! Check your emails — the one you used to sign up as a skate. Insider — because we want to get you in, but you have to do your part as well! :) PC players, when you get your email, log in to the EA App to download. Console players, your code will be in the email. Invites are going out daily, every weekday, with all invites going out before the end of July! Reminder: The skate. Playtest is under NDA - no sharing of content, discussions, feedback, bugs, or issues outside the official skate. Insider Playtest forums. The skate. Teamskate. Playtest Info Update
hey skate. fam, as mentioned in The Grind: Vol 4 , the last RSVP wave is July 22 and then we start our daily waves. everyone who signed up prior to June 27 will get an invite before the end of July, so make sure you check your emails. to prepare for this moment, we’ve added online access entitlements to every signed up playtester account – which gives you access to the forums. console players: if you have access to the forums but haven’t gotten your code yet, don’t stress. your code is coming in the coming waves through the end of July. pc players: if you have forum access, check your EA app😉 we’re stoked to see you jump in with us as we continue on the road to Early Access. see you in San Vansterdam, the skate. teamThe Grind: Vol 4
It’s the middle of July and we’ve got another volume of The Grind for ya! In Volume 4, we’re going to dive into the city of San Vansterdam, share some Update 0.27 details, and answer some of the questions you’ve asked in our official Discord Q&A channel. Thanks to everyone for reading last month’s The Grind: Vol 3 and for submitting questions for the dev team via Discord. Don’t forget to join the official Discord to get your questions into the next edition! First things first, as mentioned in The Grind: Vol 3, the skate. Insider signup is now closed. Remember: If you RSVP’d before June 27, 2025, you will be invited to playtest in one of our weekly waves. Once you’re in, you’re in until we launch Early Access. You may have noticed that some of our skate. Player Council members have been sharing videos and clips. We synced up with them and gave them access to 0.27 before it released so they could dive in and create some videos to share with the community. Reminder: the Council was given special access, but the NDA is still in effect for all Playtesters. We know you’re excited and we’ll have more info on when you can share content in the next volume of The Grind. 0.27.0 IS LIVE! We’re really stoked with update 0.27, bringing some major improvements to the playtest, and we’re also inviting every skate. Insider in before Early Access. With Update 0.27, San Vansterdam has really glowed-up, but we can’t stop, won’t stop. More work is being done by our world builders and our metagame wizards, our in-game events teams, sound geniuses, our narrative designers, UI artists, character creators, everybody. As we head to Early Access, we wanted to share some more details about the city. San Vansterdam is a growing, evolving city. Early Access is only the beginning - and we’re bringing city-wide events, new activities, and seasonal celebrations with every season in San Van. When you drop in for Early Access, you’ll notice that San Vansterdam has four packed neighborhoods - Hedgemont, Gullcrest, Market Mile, and Brickswich. Welcome to Hedgemont Hedgemont is ground zero - where your journey connects to the bigger story of the city. With the help of Vee, your San Van digital companion, and our San Van City Council, you’ll learn about Missions, Challenges, Slappy’s shops, skater eyes (how to see the world of skateboarding in everyday objects in San Vansterdam), and more. From line challenges to stunt challenges, Hedgemont will keep you busy. Drop in to a sick skatepark under the bridge or head to the waterfront to throw down some sweet lines. You can even jump on the Skateway - the elevated skater’s path that circles through San Vansterdam - to cruise to the other neighborhoods, or you can chill in Hedgemont and see what’s going on in Northeast San Van. But don’t grow roots - when you’ve completed enough Challenges and Missions, head to Gullcrest Village. Next up: Gullcrest Village One of the sickest spots in Gullcrest Village is the House of Rolling Reverence (the church). From the stained glass windows to the fun box where the pews used to be, the SVCC has turned this spot into a communal place of shredding. (You can even launch yourself off the car park garage and fly through the window if you’re daring!) There’s also a sick mini-mega ramp on the top of a building near the church, so look up. Next up: Market Mile Tall buildings, elevated walkways, and the coast of San Vansterdam are waiting for you in Market Mile. Don’t let the shiny veneer fool you - there are some hidden (and not-so-hidden) gems here. The skatepark to the left of the neighborhood is ripe for throwdowns, and near the south side, you’ve got a community park to add to and tear it up. Next up: Brickswich Check it out! We’ve got a stadium to grind on, all those curvy lines, and a skatepark off the boardwalk to soak in some sun and throw down some sick lines. Look up when you’re in Brickswich! You may see some skaters flying between those towers. Oh yeah, we also have some choice spots on those buildings with kickers, quarter pipes, and empty pools just ready to be sessioned in. The city is vertical, so get climbing. Music Any skater knows that music fuels the flow, and we’ll be sharing details about the official skate soundtrack next month, so get ready! We’ll also talk about how the soundtrack will update throughout the game's lifecycle and more. What’s happening with the skate. Insider Playtest? With Update 0.27, we’re inviting the biggest waves of playtesters to join us in San Vansterdam. The waves started July 2 for those that RSVP’d and will continue weekly until everyone who RSVP’d before June 27 gets an invite. July 2 - Already done! July 8 - Already done! July 15 - hey, that’s today! July 22 Now, even though we sent out emails in June to everyone who signed up previously so they could RSVP, some folks didn’t. Don’t worry - we got you covered and are going to give you another chance to get in, but remember to CHECK YOUR EMAILS. Starting July 22, we’ll be sending out daily waves for everyone who didn’t RSVP before June 27 but has signed up to get you into the Playtest. In the meantime, here are some game stats we’ve pulled from the skate. playtest from July 2nd - July 6th: Single highest line score is 94,009 Nearly 1500 Throwdowns 65K Flat Medium Wood Kickers dropped using Build Kit, with over 210K Quick Drop items used Over 240K took a swim Most popular spots are Hartcore Plaza, Tri-Towers, and Upper Cut We've updated social features in skate.’s Update 0.27 to ensure you can throwdown with friends – or make new ones — using the in-game chat wheel and party system, and we’re working on bringing voice chat to skate. so you can focus on your tricks and bust out those sweet lines throughout the city while chatting with the homies. Our in-game Skatepedia received an update, as well. What is Skatepedia? It’s the skater’s guide to excellence, showing you how to pull off perfect nollies and footplants, and then get twisted with some advanced moves like front flips, footplants, handplants and more. If you ever need a reminder, just open up the menu screen, Settings - Skatepedia, and refresh your memory. As we add to the game, we’ll keep updating Skatepedia. A couple of things to remember: Our official Discord is not the spot to share feedback, bugs, and issues - but we DO want you to share them with us. If you’re a playtester, head to the Playtest forums and let us know what’s going on. The feedback we’ve received already helped us get to 0.27, so keep it comin’! We’re on the road to Early Access together, and the road doesn’t end when Early Access releases later this summer. Let’s dive into your questions. Keep them coming! Your Q’s, our A’s. Will there still be a story/campaign? So the story of skate. at launch – it’s a story that’s focused around teaching players how to skate and how to make the most of their time in San Vansterdam. Crush missions, complete Tours, and learn all about the world of which you’re now a part. Because, ultimately, the story of skate. is the story of San Vansterdam and how you, a new arrival to the city, fit in and make your mark. After all, San Vansterdam used to be a skater's haven until M-Corp stripped it for parts and then left for somewhere without an extradition treaty. But - that’s just the intro. The prologue. Ultimately, the city will continue to evolve, as will your relationships with the characters who call it home. And, as the story continues to build, you'll see why it's a place that you're not just going to want to skate - but somewhere you're going to want to call home as well. Will skate. have advanced Replay Editor features like previous games? Creating content in the Skate franchise is a staple for this community, and we’re continually working to improve the Replay Editor features. What we had in the past was great, and we're working to do even more through the live service skate. will bring. The current feature set includes scrubbing, multiple camera angles, exporting video and screenshots, export settings, and disabling the HUD, but we’re not done. More features will be expanding the Replay Editor tool after Early Access launch, and they will be free for everyone. How will we make sure players have all the appropriate safety/privacy controls? At EA and Full Circle, we believe in the power of Positive Play. In skate, we want to ensure everyone has a great time, but if something goes sideways, it’s important to empower players to let us know quickly. We have EA Javelin anti-cheat monitoring for any unfair gameplay issues and in-game reporting for other issues like griefing. There are also numerous privacy options (blocking teleporting, spectating, and disabling the ability of others to move your Build Kit items). Will we be able to host our own servers? While player hosted servers won’t be available at the launch of Early Access, they’re definitely something we’re looking to do in the future. We know you want to be able to curate your own space for content creation and set up private sessions with friends in San Vansterdam. As we move through Early Access, we’ll share more details on our plans for private servers and when you can expect them. Will I need to have PS+ or Xbox Game Pass Core to play online? (is online subscription to PS or Xbox required?) Nope! We want to ensure there are as few barriers to entry as possible, so you won’t need to have PS+ or Xbox Game Pass Core to play online. (You do need to ensure your PSN ID or Gamertag is linked to your EA account.) Will skate. be available for Mac OS, Steam OS, Proton/Linux systems (handle held PCs like the Steam Deck) for Early Access? We want to bring skate. to as many platforms as possible and will continue to listen to feedback and look at the feasibility of adding new platforms in the future, but for Early Access launch, MacOS, SteamOS, Proton/Linux will not be supported. What type of communication options are in skate. for Early Access? Will we have proximity chat? What about text chat? When in San Vansterdam, you’ll be able to communicate with other skaters using the in-game social chat wheel - emotes, stickers, and phrases. You can create public/private parties, and we're bringing voice chat into the game. (Note: age restrictions may apply to certain social features.) We will continue to look at other options for communicating in-game and are always listening to feedback. Stay tuned. We’re going to be sharing details on the soundtrack of skate. in Vol 5, our New Player Hub is coming to the website, and more. Don’t forget to drop your questions in the Q&A channel in The Grind category of Discord, and we’ll pull some to answer for our next volume of The Grind. Join the community at https://discord.gg/skateEA. See you in San Vansterdam, The skate. TeamThe Grind: Vol 3
Welcome back to The Grind! We’ve got Volume 3 comin’ in hot with a lot of info - especially about the upcoming Playtest update 0.27.0 dropping early July. Thanks to everyone for reading last month’s The Grind: Vol 2 and for submitting questions to the dev team via Discord. Don’t forget to join the official Discord to get your questions into the next edition! We’ve got a big one today, so buckle up. Coming July 2, 2025, we’ll be dropping our BIGGEST playtest update. First things first, as mentioned in The Grind: Vol 1, we will be sending out invites for 0.27 in waves starting soon to everyone who has signed up as a skate. Insider. However, we are closing skate. Insider registration on June 27, 2025. If you are signed up as an Insider before June 27 you will be invited in waves to the next playtest! If you haven’t signed up, do it now! Don’t forget to ensure that your gaming account is the one you sign up with so you get the skate. Insider Rewards when we launch Early Access, and if you need help linking your console, check this FAQ. WISHLISTS ARE LIVE! We’re also excited to announce that you can now wishlist skate. on various platforms, including PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, and the Epic Game Store, right here. So if you want to throw a little support at skate.’s launch and get a reminder when Early Access goes live – head over and Wishlist skate. today! Update 0.27.0 With update 0.27.0, we’re stoked to bring some major improvements to the playtest, much of which is based on your playtesting feedback. Find out more info below and we can’t wait for you to jump in. But first, let’s just take a look at what 0.27 will look like. We think you’re going to notice a big difference. We stole this collection of clips from our team playing an early build of .27 so you could get a sneak peek of what’s to come. This is pre-release, but enjoy! What’s happening with the skate. Insider Playtest? Update 0.27 is packed with upgrades, changes, fixes, and performance improvements that you’ve been highlighting in feedback and asking for in forums. We’re stoked to give you a preview of what’s coming (we’ll have full patch notes for our playtesters before the update drops). Thanks again to everyone in the community who has helped shape this updated build! You Said: When are the visuals being updated? In Update 0.27, we have improved the visuals and you’ll notice the difference immediately (see the video above to get a sneak peek!) The city is more alive than it’s ever been! You’ll find a ton more detail, like environmental content, signage, foliage, and graffiti as well as increased pedestrian and traffic activity, with more than 3X the number of pedestrians and around 5X the number of vehicles. On the technical side, there is improved lighting and shadows, updated textures and effects, and other fine detail throughout San Vansterdam. The UI has presentation improvements throughout the game, including visual updates with animations, video effects, and sound effects. Also, the Map has been improved to show other players. We’ve also upped the max number of players in a server to 150 while improving performance across platforms. And we’re going to keep on working on this through live service. You Said: We want more to do —give us more Missions and Challenges! More Missions, more Challenges. There is more to do in San Vansterdam, and we’ve also unlocked the Market Mile neighborhood! We’ve streamlined and improved the opening/tutorial for the game to get you to San Vansterdam where we’ve added content, more than tripling the number of missions available in the game! You said you wanted even more Challenges, and now there are more than 140 Challenges for you to conquer. You Said: Improve the feel of Progression & Rewards: This captures a lot of your feedback, but to put it simply, we’ve overhauled progression and rewards. As we mentioned above, the early tutorial experience has been streamlined to get into San Van much sooner. Based on your feedback, we’ve also revamped how you progress by removing Collection Score as a gate for Challenge progression. And when you move up, you want to really feel it, and that should be fun. So we now have bigger and better celebrations when you earn a reward, and we’ve revamped the earnable in-game Product Boxes - more boxes with better rewards. Let us know what you think when you get into 0.27. You Said: We love our characters - give us more customization: skate. is all about you, an individual skateboarder finding and developing your own style, discovering your own spots, and expressing yourself, just like IRL. You’re not playing as anyone but who you want to be in the game. So we heard this loud and clear, and we agreed. In Update 0.27, we’ve made big changes, and you’ll find new and improved character options, including more options for your character’s overall appearance, as well as additional hairstyles, gestures, and emotes, with even more to come down the line. We’ve made a lot more changes in Update 0.27, including updates to music and sound, the Replay Editor, general Quality of Life improvements, haptics and more. None of this would be possible without all of our playtesters telling us what you love, what you want more of, and what you'd like improved. The entire team is listening, and we will continue to work with you to grow, evolve, and improve skate. when we launch Early Access later this year and throughout the Early Access period. Check out these two side-by-side pics of the Canal and Financial Districts. With Update 0.27, we've improved lighting, added more textures, and there's more to come! Let’s dive in to your questions. Keep them coming! Your Q’s, our A’s. When is skate. launching in Early Access? Early Access is coming at the end of summer 2025 (Northern Hemisphere!). Yes, just months away now. And as a reminder, everyone who signs up as a skate. Insider by June 27 will get invited to playtest before Early Access launch. What kind of visual updates and improvements can we expect for skate. for Early Access? We talked in detail above, but you'll notice visual improvements across a wide range of areas in Update (0.27) on July 2. But know that San Van is always changing and skate. will never stop improving—its appearance will continuously evolve, unveiling new skateboarding spots and interesting details to discover. Early Access launch is just the beginning, and the city will keep evolving. Will skate. support KBM (keyboard and mouse) controls? Flick-It has always been the Skate franchise’s core control system: a reactive, dynamic, and immersive experience that has made Skate games feel amazing and unique. For now, we’re sticking with the controls that you have loved for decades, and honestly, KBM simply doesn’t create the same tangible skateboarding feeling. So for now, you’ll need to use a controller on PC. We’re not entirely writing off KBM – we’re always listening to feedback. So let us know your thoughts on our controller-only approach. If I unlock something on my PC account, will I be able to use it on my Xbox/PS? Absolutely! As long as your console account is linked to the PC account you play with, any cosmetics or SVB you purchase on one platform will be available on every platform linked to that account. What modes will be available? S.K.A.T.E., Death Races, Hall of Meat, OTS? We'll continue to expand our gameplay modes and tricks as Early Access progresses (and beyond), and we’ll share more details about this when we have them. Are there achievements/trophies in-game to earn? Yes, with update 0.27 we’ve added 1st party Achievements/Trophies support. Is there fast travel in San Vansterdam? Getting to where you want to throw down quickly is key, so we have the San Van Transit system (it’s a bus). You can take the bus to various locations in the city, but you’ll have to level up your neighborhoods to unlock all the stops. You can also teleport to friends or other skaters you want to spectate. Don’t forget to drop your questions in the Q &A channel in The Grind category of the Discord, and we’ll pull some to answer for our next volume of The Grind. Join the community at https://discord.gg/skateEA. See you in San Vansterdam, The skate. TeamThe Grind: Vol 2
Welcome back to The Grind! Thanks to everyone for reading last month’s The Grind: Vol 1 and for submitting questions to the dev team via Discord. Don’t forget to join the official Discord to get your questions into the next edition! For Vol 2, we’ve grabbed some your recent questions as well as some of your long-standing questions and answered them below. What’s happening with the skate. Insider Playtest? At the end of April, we re-launched the skate. Mobile Playtest for iOS and Android devices as a technical test to determine the stability on a range of devices. On console and PC, the team is working towards update 0.27.0 that will bring bug fixes, new features, more content, and other key improvements. We’re also working on our in-game reporting processes to protect against griefing or inappropriate content. We’ll talk in more detail about Update 0.27.0 in The Grind Vol 3 next month, so stay tuned and get your questions in. Reminder, our next big push of Playtesting invites will happen in late June, so keep an eye on your email inbox. Let’s dive in. Your Q’s, our A’s. Will Early Access be on Steam? Yes, skate. will be launching in Early Access on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and PC (EA App, Steam, and Epic Game Store) in 2025. What are the plans for Create A Park/Player Parks? We hear you! Player Parks are one of the most asked about features, and it’s something we will to bring to San Vansterdam as the game evolves through Early Access. In the meantime, we will have Community Parks throughout San Vansterdam that will evolve and change with each Season to keep things fresh. And with the Quick Drops, you have the ability to add items like ramps, railings, benches and more into the game world in real-time, so you can make any spot in San Vansterdam truly your own. Is there a server browser for online lobbies? We want San Vansterdam to be a living city, where you can hang out with new and old friends. To keep things easy, you won’t have to go through a server browser, you can just login and skate right away. If you want to skate with friends, you can find them in the friends list and join them directly on their server. We’ll continue to expand our social features throughout live service. Will there be leaderboards like in Skate 3? Everyone loved celebrating the stats of your skateboard feats (and failures) in Skate 3, and this is definitely something we want in skate. It’s already on our development roadmap (no deploy date yet!), and we expect it to launch after our Early Access launch. Will there be dual stick controls like Skater XL & Session? One of the things that defines skate is the Flick-It system. It’s core to the DNA of the franchise and a big reason why we are all here. Gameplay is king and nothing is prioritized above making skateboarding feel amazing. So we’re keeping Flick-It as the standard for skate. – and making some improvements to the way it plays and feels. In addition, we’ve added additional control options for more Streamlined (for beginners) or Experienced (for experts) gameplay. In your Gameplay settings, you’ll be able to tweak and fine-tune your experience through settings for Auto Curb Pop or Vert Pump Assist, Grind Assist slider, and many more. Will there be an equivalent to the Super Ultra Mega Park or the Skate 1 & 2 Mega Park in the new Skate game? The team is working on exciting ways to bring “bigger” and crazier things to the game in special areas, but we’re not quite ready to talk about them in detail. We can’t wait to tell you more. How will you expand/update the city? The city will change and evolve with noticeable additions and alterations coming on a regular basis. With regular updates, you’re going to discover all kinds of new places to skate. Some in unusual places. And, as a reminder, new areas of San Vansterdam will always be free and available to all players. We won’t be gating new gameplay locations behind paywalls. If it’s there, you can go there. Will there be enough customization options when you start to create your skater or will we have to wait until we progress challenges or spend money? When you drop in to skate. you’ll immediately customize the way your skater looks. skate. is all about you, the skater, so we’re giving you the freedom to change things like body type, face details, hair, and more. Once we launch in Early Access, we plan to expand customization options over time so you never have to stop evolving your skater. We will always have options available to customize your skater further, including through cosmetics like clothing and accessories by earning currency and rewards through in-game play without having to spend money. Don’t forget to drop your questions in the Q &A channel in The Grind category of the Discord, and we’ll pull some to answer for our next volume of The Grind. Join the community at https://discord.gg/skateEA. See you in San Vansterdam, The skate. TeamSkate 3 Maintenance - May 6, 2025
We're doing server migration May 6, 2025 that will impact your ability to connect online in Skate 3 on PS3 and Xbox 360/Xbox One/Xbox Series SX. During this maintenance window, online connectivity will be unavailable. Maintenance Started at 7:20AM PT. Downtime is expected to be 11 hours. Thank you for your patience. Once we have confirmed online service has been re-established, we'll update this post. The skate. Team __________________________ Update Confirmed PS3 online is back up; team is troubleshooting Xbox platforms' connectivity. Will provide final update once Xbox connectivity is confirmed. Thanks for your patience!The Grind: Vol 1
Welcome to The Grind! What is The Grind? This is our platform to talk directly to you, the community. We will share details about skate., answering your questions directly, and talk about where we’re at in development (from playtesting onward). We want The Grind to tell you everything you need to know about skate. before we open up San Vansterdam in Early Access later this year. The Grind is about you, our players, and for it to work, we need your questions. We are opening a new question submission form in the official Discord and we’ll pull questions from there for our next volume of The Grind, coming in May. Start adding your questions for the development team in the new #questions . And please – don’t hold back. Ask the questions that you really want answers to. Let’s get Vol 1 of The Grind rolling! What’s happening with the skate. Insider Playtest? In Sept 2024, we began our Always-On Playtest. This new phase tests the game in a permanent live environment, with servers running around the clock. We began with PC and mobile testing and rolled out a small wave of console test invites. In March, we invited our biggest wave of testers to date, launched the 0.26.0 playtest update, and turned on virtual currency testing for PS and PC testers. We’ve updated the city, added more challenges, updated visuals, fixed bugs from 0.25.0, and much more. As skate. Insiders share their feedback and issues, the Full Circle team is working to address these reports and continually improve the gameplay and the feel of skating in San Vansterdam. We're building this game in collaboration with the community, and that’s why these playtests and the sharing of bugs, issues, and feedback is so important. To date, we’ve invited more than 200K players into the playtest, and that massive amount of feedback (over 30K posts on the playtest forums and over 20K survey responses) has helped steer the direction of skate. and improve the gameplay and performance. So thank you, testers, for all that you’ve done so far and continue to do. And if you’re reading this and still waiting for an invite, don’t worry, we’re planning on sending out another large wave of invites in June. Just for fun, we asked our data team to share some of the things you’ve all been doing in the playtest. Check out some of the highlights of your accomplishments in San Vansterdam: More than 16 million kickflips* More than 4.8 million 50-50 Grinds landed - nothin’ but bolts! The Longest Grind (so far) – more than 200 meters! That’s about 15 school buses! More than 40 million Total Wipeouts – Ouch! More than 6.5 million Challenges completed includes varial and nollie kickflips * Now, let’s answer some of those questions you’ve asked us that need answers! Your Q’s, our A’s. Is skate. still launching in 2025? Yes! We are still planning on launching in Early Access later this year. We have an ambitious vision for skate.: an ever-growing, ever-evolving skateboarding sandbox that expands over time with the feedback of the players living in San Vansterdam. Our Early Access launch will only be Day One of that experience, a starting point from which new features, improvements, and content will be added over time. We don’t consider the Early Access launch the “finished version” of skate., and neither should you. But the skateboarding experience will be great, and you’ll have tons to do with your friends in San Vansterdam. We can’t wait to share more details about what we have planned, both for day one of Early Access and in the months that follow. We’ll be updating you regularly over the next few months so keep an eye out right here and on our official social channels to stay up to date. Will skate. have an offline mode? The simple answer: No. The game and city are designed to be a living, breathing massively multiplayer skateboarding sandbox that is always online and always evolving. You’ll see bigger things evolve, like changes to the city over time, as well as smaller things, like live events and other in-game activities. In order to deliver on our vision of a skateboarding world, the game will always require a live connection. That is probably not much of a surprise if you’ve been in our playtest. How did you come up with the name San Vansterdam? We TOTALLY conducted extensive scientific, data-driven research and didn’t just spitball names until we found something everyone didn't hate. We promise. Is cross-play/cross-progression in the playtest? Absolutely! When you load in, you can see if someone is on a console or PC with cross-play on by default. And with cross-progression, if you have access to more than one platform for playtesting, you can literally log out of one platform, and launch the playtest on the other platform, and you’ll start exactly where you logged out. Hey, I signed up but never got in. What gives? It’s nothing personal, we promise! To make our testing most effective and to ensure stability, we are providing access to testers in waves. But rest assured, before we launch into Early Access, everyone who has registered as skate. Insiders will get an invite to come playtest the game. Why are microtransactions active in the playtest? San Vansterdam will be a living skating world, and we want to effectively support ongoing development while also offering a system that feels fair and fun for all of our players. To get there, we’re running extensive testing across PC and PS (Xbox testing will be rolling out later) to catch any issues or pain points, and to ensure that the content represents a fair value for our players. We know that using real money during a playtest is a little unusual, but we think it’s the best way to properly assess and adjust the system before launch. If you see prices or other things changing over time, please understand that this is normal. And of course, you will receive the amount you spent during playtesting in San Van Bucks (SVB) when we reset for Early Access launch. What happens with any money I spend during the Playtest? Like we said, if you choose to participate in this test and spend real money, whatever you spend will be returned to you in SVB when the game launches for Early Access. If you buy $20 of SVB, you will enter Early Access with $20 worth of SVB waiting for you on the same EA account. While it’s important to us for testing, we understand some of you may feel uncomfortable spending real money in a test-phase game. So if you don’t want to spend your money right now, we totally get it, and your feedback is always important to us. Is everything “cool” going to be locked behind a paywall? We are still adjusting the in-game rewards system, including the items available with San Van Bucks and the earnable Rip Chips currency, which will allow you to grab items from Product Boxes by completing Challenges and ranking up the districts of San Vansterdam. As mentioned in The Board Room Ep 3, skate. will not have paid lootboxes. The bottom line – there will be “cool” things for you to earn and customize your character without having to spend real cash. Will there be locations on the map that will cost money? The city of San Vansterdam will grow and evolve, with new areas opening up over its lifetime. As we said in one of our first Board Room videos, we will not lock new gameplay areas behind a paywall. If a new area is added to the game world, you can access it for free. Will I have to pay to level up the stats of my character? skate. isn’t a pay-to-win game, so there will be no paying to increase your skater’s skills (there also are no skill stats to increase for your skater anyway). Your stats are in your fingers - how good you Flick-it is how good you are in San Vansterdam. Practice makes pro, not a list of numbers in a stat sheet. Thanks for joining us for the first volume of The Grind. We hope you enjoyed hearing a bit from us and having us answer your questions directly. We’ll be doing these monthly over the next few months so be sure to join the official Discord (https://discord.gg/skateEA) and fill out the question submission form to get your hot questions in for next time. And, as always, stay tuned in to our social channels for the latest info and answers to your questions. See you in San Vansterdam, The skate. Team Stay in the loop by following skate. on Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, and Facebook and read all the latest news and updates from our team via the skate. newsroom. Join the conversation in our official Discord server and our community-run Reddit.UPDATE: skate. Playtest Error Code 480232561
greetings, console skate. Playtester fam! We're tracking a few of you who are experiencing Error Code 480232561 when trying to access the playtest on your console. The source of this error is that your console account does not match the EA account with which you signed up to Playtest. Important Note: the PS4 / PS5 / Xbox One/ Xbox Series SX Code we sent you is only valid for the EA Playtesting account you used to request the code. It cannot be shared with anyone else. If you redeemed the code on a PSN ID or Gamertag that was not already linked to the EA account you requested your code from (the one you signed up with as a skate. Insider via the EA Playtesting site), you will receive the 480232561 error. Your console account must be properly linked to your EA Playtesting account. If you think your accounts are linked, and you still received an error, you can check by going to https://myaccount.ea.com and sign in with your EA account email. Check 'Connections.' If your console ID isn't there, you're not linked up. Next, log out, then go back to https://myaccount.ea.com and select your console platform icon at the top and login that way. That's the actual EA account your console ID is connected to. REMINDER: all Playtesting posts should be in the Playtest forums. We’ll have an update as soon as possible on next steps, thanks for your patience. (we know you're stoked to get into San Vansterdam) the skate. team ___________________________________________ Currently rolling out a fix. If you had this issue, you should be able to launch the game and explore San Vansterdam in the next 1-2 hours. If you're on PS4/PS5, you may need to restore licenses. You can do so by following the steps below (found in this FAQ). How to restore licenses on PS5 consoles Please note, restoring licenses won't affect your data. Go to Settings > Users and Accounts > Other > Restore Licenses. Select the licenses that you want to restore. To restore a license directly from the home screen or your game library, go to the game, press the options button, and then select Restore License from the menu. PS4 console: Restore licenses Go to Settings > Account Management > Restore Licenses. Select Restore.
