For years, fans have been begging EA to make Skate 4; a follow up to the hugely successful Skate trilogy developed by EA Black Box. Well, in 2020 their request was granted and EA announced that a Skate sequel was being developed by Full Circle. With that said, the news that Skate 4 will be free-to-play may not be the news that fans of the franchise were wanting to hear.
The team at Full Circle have been doing some interviews with the gaming press and dropping some more information with regards to the upcoming game, which will apparently simply be called Skate. Not only that, but it will also be a live-service, free-to-play experience. This was announced in a video that was dropped on July 14th and can be viewed below:
It is interesting in this video how the team states that this is not a remake, nor is it a sequel. Rather, it seems to be more of a continuation of the Skate series. Full Circle promises that it will still feel like a Skate game and won’t just be a disconnected project with the name slapped on it for the sake of franchise recognition.
As many will be aware, the phrase; “live-service free-to-play experience,” is never a welcome one in the video game world. It seems that Full Circle are aware of this too. They spoke to The Verge about their upcoming skating game project and were sure to stress that just because Skate is going free-to-play, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be pay-to-win:
I want it to be very clear that it’s not a pay-to-win game. There won’t be any gameplay areas hidden exclusively behind a paywall. Players won’t be able to buy any gameplay altering advantages.
Elsewhere in the interview, another interesting piece of information was divulged from an interesting question posed to the team. The Verge asked Full Circle whether a paid version of the game was ever planned, or whether this was always intended to be a free-to-play experience. Deran Chung, – one of the creative directors of Skate, – gave this answer:
Honestly, it’s always kind of been that. Even from really early on. If I could go back and make Skate 3 in 2015 or something, I don’t know if it would have been a boxed product. I think it just makes sense for the franchise in terms of what the community wants. I don’t know if having an iterative title makes a ton of sense. It feels like — it sounds trite to say — the natural evolution of the franchise and skating and games and all of those things coming together seems like the right thing for us to pursue.
If you are interested in checking out this new title as soon as possible, you can sign up to be a part of the, “pre-pre-pre-alpha,” right here. The use of that phrase also suggests that this project is a long way off from any sort of an official launch.
What do you make of the news that Skate 4 will be free-to-play? What do you think of the fact that this won’t be either a reboot or a sequel? Are you going to sign up to the playtest? Let us know in the comments section below, or you can hit me up on twitter linked below in my bio.
Jaymes
Hey, Daniel Boyd , why are you calling it Skate 4? They already stated that it was NOT called skate 4. Its called Skate.
If you’re gunna write about a game, at least make the effort to find out the actual Title of the game you’re writing about.
Daniel Boyd
If you read the article, I clearly state that the title of the new game is simply; Skate. The reason that it is referred to as Skate 4 in the heading is because that is the name of the game that many Skate fans have been anticipating for years. It was only during the development video linked above that the new title was announced.