Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater celebrated its 25-year anniversary on September 29, 2024.
Below, we look back at how it began, and its influence as an unconventional platformer.
The 1990s were a wild time for skateboarding.
The 1999 classic has officially turned 25 this year.
Skateboarders were practically superheroes while ollieing through traffic and grinding across power lines in the real world.
The Birdman wanted to replicate that feeling in a game when he set out to partner with a studio.
The demo from Neversoft made anyonenot just skateboardersfeel like they were superman with a skateboard.
“We never wanted you to accidentally do something you didn’t want to do.
Even if that was cool.
Those were simply challenges and fun things to do while riding around in an open space.
It was a recipe for replayability.
Each following game did a little to make their parks feel more alive.
The combination of fantastic movement and open playgrounds was widely appealing.
It made Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater a game that almost anyone could jump into.
The tricks were important, but the ability to go your own way was the real attraction.
“A lot of people did say, ‘you might’t really do that.
you could’t just make a game that’s pure tricks.
It’s not going to work, no one’s done that.
It’s not real, man, you’d run out of speed.’
So we had this big internal debate,” Pease said in a separateinterviewwith Polygon.
Neversoft, the studio behind the 1999 hit, disbanded in 2014.
Vicarious Visions, the team behind the 2020 remaster, was folded into other Activision Blizzard teams.
It sold more than amillion copiesin the span of two weeks.
Players have continued to dig into the games create-a-park mode, despite little support for the remasters online modes.
Under new ownership at Microsoft, perhaps it’s a franchise that will be revisited.
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