Skate's janky playtest videos are making unfinished games look cool

pcgamer.com:

Skate has posted yet another video of insider highlights from its closed playtests, all of which makes me want to play the skateboarding game because of how hard I'm laughing at these skaters absolutely eating it. I cannot play it, however, because I have not been deemed worthy by EA to be an insider. That's a shame, because these insiders look like they're having a lot of fun.

The footage, which the watermark describes as «pre-pre-alpha gameplay,» is just what it says: Highlights of skaters smacking into things, grabbing onto architecture, traversing absurd-looking level designer courses, and even, yes, pulling off some tricks. An overlay of some happily choppy skater rock completes the vibe.

And that vibe is that this makes playing what is surely a janky, broken mess of an in-development game look very enjoyable. It's probably kind of fun, but also not! You can see how that last guy just kind of inexplicably slides right off his board mid-grind like his shoes have been soaped. The Skate reboot is clearly still early, and yet instead of wincing at the jank, I'm just laughing. There's just something about watching bendy silly putty people get in horrible accidents and then jump right back up and high five each other that's delightful. It's like consequence-free Jackass.

I found these highlights particularly fun because they show measured growth from the Still Working On It(opens in new tab) trailer released early last year. Watch that one, then the August 2022(opens in new tab) and November 2022(opens in new tab) playtest highlights for a look at the game as it grows in development. Animations and physics, especially, get noticeably less stiff from video to video.

Skate is a reboot of EA's much beloved open world