There are few gaming franchises that were part of a cultural zeitgeist. None so better describes that notion than the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series which was catapulted to the mainstream during the extreme sports era in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Fans loved those game, and clamored for the series to return forever after those types of games faded from the mainstream consciousness. Five years ago, we got the remakes of the first two games which were met with critical and fan success. However, unfortunately, developer Vicarious Visions was folded into Blizzard not long after those remakes released. Now, five years later, Iron Galaxy has taken the mantle to bring the next two games in the series forward for fans to get their hands on in nearly twenty years with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4.
To end our first day at Summer Games Fest, we got to go hands-on with the remakes and talk to the developers about working on such an iconic franchise. As for the games, the modern graphics make the places you skate around look phenomenal, and the games feel as good to play as you would remember from twenty plus years ago. That’s especially true with some of the mechanics from the 4 being implemented into 3. Then, there’s the new content. Iron Galaxy has added three new levels to 4, and I asked how they kept these new levels in line with the levels that were there originally. They told me their idea was to create levels as if they were found on an old Neversoft hard drive full of cut or unused levels. Honestly, they fit in perfectly, and the game director would love to create a brand new game in the series with all new levels if given the chance.
Then, there’s the iconic music from the games. A lot of old tracks return for the remakes. However, there are also a plethora of new track being added with the remakes which you can see below: