🔞 ADULT: Id/Jackomax - High Quality

Wanna start this review by stating that i'm a veteran Skate fan and have been playing the series for well over 10 years at this point, with countless hours in both Skate 3 and 2 combined and have been apart of the Skate playtests for around a year and half and clocked around 20 ish hours in the final playtest, so I feel I have a good understanding of the series and where this game stands in contrast to the others, and i wanna state that the core mechanics of the game are solid enough that i will still sink many hours into it as a pretence.

That being said,I can't really recommend this game (at least in its current state) as of release. When i played the various playtests i was very optimistic and mostly impressed with what i was playing, its my understanding that the team at full circle have had to completely remake the flick it trick system by hand and i would say they’ve done an outstanding job in that area for sure, the tricks all feel very satisfying and it feels just like skate 3 in regards to things like body flips ect, and ive had a blast getting stuck in the game and as stated i was very optimistic to see what skate 4 would bring to the table for the series and unfortunately it isn't a whole lot.

I'm not gonna list everything absent in the early access build of the game (mostly due to it being the forefront of every negative review right now) but the biggest one for me is the lack of a story mode and clear focus on micro-transactions rather than some content that should probably be present.

The lack of a story mode is quite a let down for me personally; I for one, loved both skate 2 and 3s story mode, i loved how you started from nothing as an independent skater, recording lines and sending the best pics to thrasher magazine and competing in local tournaments for a few dozen dollars and seeing it progress to skating with pros like danny way and eric koston and competing in headlining skate tournaments in giant stadiums. you made your company up as the game progressed, you really felt a sense of progression and it was really rewarding seeing your skater dripped out in sponsored clothing and gear. That is completely absent in all regards in the current build of Skate. All there is for you to do is the same 4 challenges (that being lines,stunts,own the spot and sessions) and the ‘missions' that are basically just a glorified tutorial and that is IT. No deathmatches, no pro meet ups, no competitions, nothing… It gets very tiresome fast and it's so frustrating as the prior games had this gameplay formula figured out 15 years ago and it sucks seeing it regressed so bad, of course they have stated that they will add more content in the future, but its kinda insulting that they think this will be enough to keep us interested until that content is made.

Of course the game being free to play means its gonna have a store with microtransations and the obligatory battle-pass that every game these days (free or paid) NEEDS to have for some reason, and look, i get it, i really do… but its such a shame that the store has more time put into then basic features that really should be in the game at launch; there's no dark catches/slides, no finger flips, no handplant variations and everything spoken about in the latter paragraph, but don't worry guys, they put out a roadmap stating that dark catches and handplants are coming in 2026! In that same road map they state that the first skate pass will be out next month in October, so you can really see where their priorities lie unfortunately…

Overall I can't really recommend this game right now unless you're like me and just wanna play a new skate game after all this time. Its too empty and shallow in content right now and can be explained away as “but its early access” and that's just not enough to explain away the upsetting truth that this game is more of a money first, content later kinda game. Its just perplexing that it took 5 years in development to somehow end up being the most underdeveloped in the series.