The wait for a new entry in the successful skate. series seems to be endless. The last entry was skate 3 which released back on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 all the way back in 2010. That said, the series remains popular with a big following anticipating the reboot.

In September last year, EA confirmed that skate. will be coming to early access in 2025 and have today reaffirmed that release window is still on target. In a new developer blog series called The Grind from EA studio Full Circle, the developers shared some updates on the games development.

skate. updates

Here are the key takeaways:

• skate.'s always on Insider Playtest is still live and they have invited 200k players to test the game and share feedback with the devs. Full Circle are building the game "in collaboration with the community". There will be more invites coming out in June. Xbox playtesting for skate. is yet to start and a release date will be announced soon.
• skate. is still launching in 2025 in to early access. The game will be an "ever-growing, ever-evolving skateboarding sandbox that expands over time with the feedback of the players living in San Vansterdam"
• In what will be very disappointing news for many players including Steam Deck users, skate. will not have an offline mode. San Vansterdam is designed to be "a living, breathing massively multiplayer skateboarding sandbox that is always online and always evolving". The game will have live events and other activities (think Forza Horizon-style)
• Cross-save and cross-progression will be in skate.
• skate.'s playtest has microtransactions. For players who spend money in the playtest, they will get the same money back in the early access build. However there will be no pay to win as microtransactions can't fuel skater stat increases.

Players are invited to join the skate. Discord for further updates on the game and to ask their questions about what's coming later this year.

Whilst we don't have a full release date yet, it’s reassuring to hear early access will launch this year. What we do have a date for is the remake of Tony Hawks 3+4 which is launching on 11 July 2025 for all platforms. We can't wait for Tony Hawks at GSC and plan to bring you more coverage up to and after launch.

So, quite a lot of news for the first post in The Grind series.  We will keep an eye on the blog and report on further news as more becomes available here at GSC. Let us know in the comments below if you've managed to get in the playtest!