The reboot of Skate is going to be a free-to-play, live service game, EA has confirmed. Rather than being a straight successor to 2010’s Skate 3 as Skate 4, it will instead take inspiration from the plethora of F2P live service games currently on the market.
Skate will also support cross-play and cross-progression for players on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. According to The Verge, Skate may even come to mobile at some point too. As explored in both an interview with The Verge and in a video with developers, Skate will also lean heavily on user generated content. Developer Full Circle has revealed what it is calling “CollaboZones”
As with any free-to-play game, monetisation will play a huge role in the success of Skate. There will be microtransactions, but they will not alter gameplay, according to Isabelle Mocquard, the head of product management on Skate. “I want it to be very clear that it’s not a pay-to-win game,” she tells The Verge. “There won’t be any gameplay areas hidden exclusively behind a paywall. Players won’t be able to buy any gameplay altering advantages.”
This is a bold change of direction for a franchise that has always been a paid title with little or no additional support post-release.
With EA seeing live service success with the likes of Apex Legends, and other publishers seeing equally strong results from this business model too. That being said, there have been a far few free-to-play flops in recent times, which Skate will do well to avoid.
While we got a lot of information, we didn’t hear any more details on a solid Skate release date, or even a release window for that matter. It may be some time before we got to pick up our virtual boards.