Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater celebrated its 25-year anniversary on September 29, 2024. Under, we glance again at the way it started, and its affect as an unconventional platformer.
The Nineties had been a wild time for skateboarding. Professionals like Tony Hawk had been pushing the bounds of what appeared potential by nailing unbelievable stunts for the primary time in history–the loop of dying, a 16ft ollie between water towers, and the primary 900. Little did we all know that these stunts and the individuals behind them would change into a part of the inspiration of one of many best platformers of all time: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
The 1999 basic has formally turned 25 this yr. Its legacy of unimaginable arcade gameplay–the one which spawned eight sequels, hundreds of thousands in gross sales, and numerous kickflips and heelflips–is nonetheless as prevalent in the present day because it was when the X Video games had been on the top of their reputation. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater introduced skateboarding to a brand new degree of cultural significance as individuals of all ages, children particularly, discovered their technique to real-world skateboarding after shredding by the digital stays of an previous deserted mall.
Tony Hawk and different skaters weren’t simply turning skateboarding right into a phenomenon, they had been turning it into an excessive sport. Skate boarders had been virtually superheroes whereas ollieing by site visitors and grinding throughout energy strains in the actual world. The Birdman needed to copy that feeling in a recreation when he got down to companion with a studio. The demo from Neversoft made anybody–not simply skate boarders–really feel like they had been superman with a skateboard.
“Activision known as me and I knew immediately that was precisely what I needed to work on,” he stated in a 2017 interview with Jenkem. “It was already enjoyable to play, you did not have to know the best way to skate, and the controls had been simpler to know.”
Birdman’s romp from a Warehouse in California to a secret navy facility in Roswell, New Mexico is seen as top-of-the-line skateboarding video games of all time for the way it captured the tradition of skating with its music and elegance, however one more reason Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater grew to become such a sensation was as a result of its exploration and platforming are among the most invigorating within the style. The easy motion, particularly for a launch that got here simply years after Tremendous Mario 64, was as sharp as some other platformer on the market.
“We by no means needed you to by accident do one thing you did not wish to do. Even when that was cool. We needed it to do precisely what you had been telling it to do,” stated Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater producer Scott Pease in a 2019 interview with The Ringer. “While you really bodily push that button and then you definitely get snapped into that rail, it feels such as you’re doing one thing, versus the sport form of taking part in itself.”
Certain, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is a sports activities recreation, and a skateboarding recreation in case you’d categorize that as a complete style, however its core mechanics set Tony Hawk moreover the likes of Mario, Astro Bot, and the Fall Guys. Like all nice platformer, the core of the sport is about navigating difficult jumps with precision timing, and chaining your actions collectively into one impeccably easy line. Like these heroes and their catalog of untamed adventures, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater had its justifiable share of arcade zaniness.
Grinding throughout the highest of a movie show’s showtime show in Minneapolis and doing an ollie over a cable automotive in San Francisco had been simply a few issues that you simply’d by no means see in the actual world until Purple Bull arrange a stunt for it. These had been merely challenges and enjoyable issues to do whereas driving round in an open area.
Every of these early parks was a seamless mixture of exploration, platforming, and finally style-themed challenges the place every two minute long term supplied a special form of enjoyable. First you’d simply discover to get the lay of the land, then you definitely’d try to discover all of the secrets and techniques, and eventually you’d discover the quickest and most effective technique to gather every part and earn essentially the most factors in a degree. It was a recipe for replayability.
Every following recreation did slightly to make their parks really feel extra alive. Pro Skater 3 introduced pedestrians, Pro Skater 4 introduced animals, and Underground really allow you to get off your board to discover issues up shut.
The unique Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, constructed on the framework of Neversoft’s earlier challenge Apocalypse–which featured Bruce Willis blowing issues up–had simple motion mechanics. There was a restricted set of methods and the first technique to mix methods was to grind and wall journey. Later video games would enhance on this, bringing within the handbook, pure methods to mix methods, and higher recreation improvement know-how that made driving a skateboard in a digital area tighter.
The mixture of implausible motion and open playgrounds was extensively interesting. It made Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater a recreation that nearly anybody might leap into. The methods had been necessary, however the skill to go your individual manner was the actual attraction.
“Lots of people did say, ‘You may’t actually try this. You may’t simply make a recreation that is pure methods. It is not going to work, nobody’s completed that. It is not actual, man, you’d run out of pace.’ So we had this large inner debate,” Pease stated in a separate interview with Polygon. “We simply began to lean into the pure act of skating in an actual atmosphere, going anyplace, exploring, discovering your individual strains and being inventive.”
The historical past behind the studios which have made the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series–including the video games that will finally drop the Pro Skater title and the eventual 2020 remaster–have disbanded. Neversoft, the studio behind the 1999 hit, disbanded in 2014. Vicarious Visions, the workforce behind the 2020 remaster, was folded into different Activision Blizzard groups.
Regardless that the workforce that’s behind it’s not engaged on the collection, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 was a big success. It offered greater than a million copies within the span of two weeks. Gamers have continued to dig into the video games create-a-park mode, regardless of little assist for the remasters on-line modes.
The love that players–not simply skateboarding fans–have for the easy pleasure of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater gameplay is unimaginable. They had been devastated when stories {that a} remake of the second and third recreation within the collection was rejected in favor of Name of Responsibility improvement.
Activision has stated that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is an “important core” franchise for it in the present day, sparking some hope that extra remakes and new video games might be sooner or later. Below new possession at Microsoft, maybe it is a franchise that can be revisited. It could be implausible to see a brand new recreation proceed to evolve the unimaginable premise of a skateboarding platformer, however the legacy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater will eternally dwell alongside Mario.
“Because of Activision, Neversoft (RIP) and all of you that performed THPS in these early life,” Tony Hawk stated in an Instagram post to commemorate the video games twenty fifth anniversary. “I am not alleged to tease anything about the way forward for the collection, however there can be a future.”
There may be as a lot demand for implausible platformers in the present day as there was in 1999 as Astro Bot, Tremendous Mario Odyssey, and even Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 have proven us. Gamers, each new and previous, would instantly really feel proper at house on the digital concrete of a brand new Tony Hawk recreation, particularly if The Birdman remains to be ensuring the sport expertise lives as much as the hype of real-world skateboarding.