Skate heelflips into my calendar with an early access release some time in 2025
The upcoming skate. game now has an (admittedly vague) early access release date of 2025, according to a post by the developers on Xitter. It's difficult to write about the new skate. game because if you choose to write skate. with the imposed stylings which skate. publishers Electronic Arts insist, you end up putting a full stop after every instance of skate., which makes your sentences about skate. sound fucking stupid. and. belaboured. with. pauses. Game makers, please stop putting punctuation in your game names.
"we're incredibly stoked to announce that skate. will be launching in Early Access in 2025. we'll share more details on what to expect in the coming months," say developers Full Circle, fully embracing the lower case, except for the words "Early Access".
Punctuation chaos aside, the skateboarding game looks like great fun. The footage we've been shown so far shows wonderful prototype sandboxes, and dozens of skaters bailing off rooftops and sailing down skyscrapers set up like a big human pachinko machine (see below). There's also whole playlist of full of highlights from testers and some excellent bail compilations. Meanwhile the developers have regular informal chitchats about what's happening in-house.
That sense of transparency hasn't always been 100% voluntary, mind. A multiplayer version of the game's alpha was leaked online in 2022. But even this doesn't seem that big a deal for a studio who appears to lean into semi-open development. I quite like seeing blockouts of unfinished levels and work-in-progress animations that twist and contort in alien ways. It's a nice reminder that video games don't just appear fully baked. For a long time, they look like hilarious ad-hoc playgrounds made out of cardboard and brightly coloured string. It looks incomplete, yes. But there's something appealing about a level in prototype. Sometimes a sketch can be as pleasing as a finished piece. I once blocked out a construction site for skateboarding sim Session. It
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