Skate (2025 video game)

Skate^{[note 1]} (known colloquially as Skate 4) is an upcoming free-to-play skateboarding video game developed by Full Circle and published by Electronic Arts. It is a reboot of the Skate series, focused on delivering a sandbox-style multiplayer experience. The game is expected to launch in early access in late summer 2025.^[1][2][3]

Skate
Developer(s)	Full Circle
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Director(s)	Chris Parry Deran Chung
Series	Skate
Engine	Frostbite
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Xbox One Xbox Series X/S MacOS Windows Android iOS
Release	Full release: TBA Early Access: Late summer 2025
Genre(s)	Sports, Sandbox
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Development

Over a decade after the release of Skate 3, Electronic Arts announced that a fourth installment of Skate was in development.^[4] EA established Full Circle, a new studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, to lead its development.^[5] The studio is led by Daniel McCulloch, and includes Deran Chung and Cuz Parry, who had worked the original Skate games.^[6][7]

The game was first revealed in 2020 during EA Play Live 2020.^[8] The game's director Chris Perry stated that a new Skate game was heavily requested by players.^[9] CEO of Electronic Arts Andrew Wilson stated that the game is believed to be "a strong candidate to employ some of the popular trends it sees inside of its existing game communities" by EA. He also stated that the game will focus on building a virtual community through cross-platform play and user-generated content.^[10]

In late August 2021, EA confirmed that the game will be available on Microsoft Windows and macOS for the first time ever in the series' history,^[11] and will also target PlayStation and Xbox consoles, as well as mobile platforms.^[12] In July 2022, the game was announced as Skate, stylized as skate. as the original game. It was also stated that the game will be free-to-play.^[13] The new Skate will be set in a new city known as San Vansterdam.^[14]

In June 2024, during Summer Game Fest, a gameplay trailer for Skate was published on YouTube. The game was stated to be in a "pre-pre-alpha" version, with a promise that Full Circle is "still working at it".^[15][16] In June 2025, EA showcased the game's updated graphical fidelity over the alpha versions and announced that the early access will "arrive at the end of the summer".^[17][18]

Reception

Pre-release

In April 2025, Full Circle has stated that Skate will not have an offline mode "in order to deliver on [the team's] vision of a skateboarding world".^[19] This decision was criticized by users and various news outlets, such as PC Gamer and Rock Paper Shotgun, who both compared Skate to the 2014 online-only racing game The Crew, which got its servers shut down in 2024, rendering the game unplayable.^[20][21]

During the closed alpha playtesting, microtransactions have been added into Skate in form of a digital currency "San Van bucks" that is used to buy in-game items.^[8] According to Full Circle, the decision to add microtransactions early on was to ensure a "positive experience when purchasing items from the Skate store".^[22] Prior to these news, EA stated that the game will not feature any loot boxes, pay-to-win gameplay elements and paywalled cosmetics and locations.^[23][24]

Notes

1. Stylized as skate.