Five years ago, in June 2020, the first gameplay trailer for Skate Story was unveiled, depicting what fans considered at the time to be an incredibly polished-looking, aesthetically appealing, and abstract addition to the genre of skateboarding games, planned for publication by Devolver Digital as of its first official reveal trailer in 2022. Three years later, on this past October 9, the release date for Sam Eng and Devolver Digital’s upcoming title, Skate Story, was uploaded to Devolver Digital’s YouTube Channel within an accompanying trailer. This trailer shows off far more of the game than previously seen before, with much more focus being put on the fine details present in the game’s unfamiliar environments, and the background characters with which the player will be interacting throughout the narrative. Ultimately, what this trailer has told fans, however, is that Skate Story really was not ready to release back in 2022—and certainly not 2020—despite how polished it might have looked at the time.
Followers of Skate Story’s development journey have gotten the chance to see the game grow over the years since its initial reveal, and as such, can make visual distinctions between how the game’s earlier build looks in comparison to the far more complete state we find it in now after so long. Looking back at the initial reveal trailer, it is clear just how much more work was left to be done at that time, as the gameplay features the player character simply skating around in different unintelligible environments. They skate around seemingly chasing after massive amorphous bodies of light and geometry, but with little signs of any further objective other than what is written in the video’s description about the player character being tasked with eating the moon. Today, though the story has changed very little to our knowledge—with the end goal still being for your character to eat the moon—we know from gameplay footage of the latest build that there has been a serious effort to make more obvious objectives and outlined points of interest within each level. Obstacles are made clearer, being given dotted lines seen outlining the body of grindable ledges, in tandem with a contrasting use of color to draw the player’s focus from one area to the next. This, in particular, is effective in making the game’s environments pop, as we see in the older trailer builds; environments looked far less interesting, with everything being a shade of either grey, dark blue, or dark red, and as a result, the two builds, old and new, look nearly unrecognizable aside from their base shared art style.
It is clear when comparing this new build footage to that of the oldest builds that Skate Story’s aesthetic and its skateboarding mechanics were the very first thing to be considered, likely for good reason, as Sam Eng seemingly nailed the vibe for the game early on, as it has not shifted far from the reveal trailer builds seen by the public outside of subtle improvements.
Excitement is at an all-time high for Sam Eng’s Skate Story, and there’s no question why. The latest trailer served not only to announce the game’s release date, but it was also the catalyst that rang in the release of Skate Story’s free-to-play demo, which is playable for PC gamers via Steam as of this past October 10. Skate Story officially releases worldwide for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via Steam this coming December 8.