It’s time for the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series to move on from remakes

People who grew up during the 2000s have a genuine love for the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games. This is why the remakes of the first four games in the series received a very positive reception, as they were the titles that people vividly remember contributing to the popularity of skateboarding during the 2000s. While Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 were iconic releases for home consoles, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4 kept the momentum of the series going for a bit longer until things began to change with the releases that followed. But with two releases that bundled some of the most beloved games in the series together, it’s time for the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series to go in a new direction.

Eventually, the concept of remaking games starts to wear thin on everyone. You can only do the same thing so many times before it begins to feel repetitive and monotonous. This is why it would be very smart for the next Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games to get away from the earlier titles and refocus on creating something brand-new, while also using what worked from the classics. The series doesn’t need to be trapped by its success from the past, but rather keep the spirit of the previous games while going into unknown territory. Here’s why Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater needs to move on from doing remakes and give fans a truly new game to play.

The stuff that works should stay

If it ain’t broke, don’t change it

One of the biggest complaints from players about some of the later Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games was how they lacked the simple objective-based gameplay of the original titles. Games like Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland focused too much on a story mode and tinkering with gameplay elements that many players didn’t feel needed to be done. It got away from what worked so well already. Being able to drop into a level for a period of 2 minutes and skate rampantly through the area completing objectives was just fun. It was an approach to a skateboarding game that made the series stand apart from other titles that attempted to render the extreme sport.

This is the one thing that should remain constant in future Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater titles, with little to no changes made to it. Of course, the locations and general setting of games will always vary, but the core gameplay formula shouldn’t be that different from before. It’s the same kind of approach that Nintendo has with the Super Mario franchise, where most of the games play very similar but have their own unique presentation and settings. A new Tony Hawk game doesn’t need to be exactly like the older titles, it just needs to feel like them during gameplay.

No need for later remakes

What’s really unnecessary now

Source: Activision

The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series really took a sharp turn in quality after the first six games came out for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and original Xbox. After Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, the follow-up to it, Tony Hawk’s Underground, was still received well by critics and fans. But it was at this point that things really started to change for the franchise as a whole, with the response to later games becoming less enthusiastic than before. Aspects of other popular games began to get interjected into the series in order to keep from being stagnant, yet at the same time fundamentally changed things that made the entire series into something unrecognizable by the end. It just didn’t feel like the games that people remembered playing on the original PlayStation.

Source: Actvision

This is why the idea of remaking Tony Hawk’s Underground or other games from later in the series feels unnecessary. Hardly anyone is clamoring to revisit the story mode or narratives of those titles, let alone excited to see the characters from them once again. The majority of people didn’t play the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games to follow a story. They played them because of how fun the well-designed gameplay was to go back to many times over. Unfortunately, each entry following Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 prioritized other aspects that just haven’t aged well, and would most likely not be worth going back to and fixing for a remake. Even the open-world skating that was a central part of Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland feels like a mediocre concept to revisit now, especially when going to multiple locations to skate on instead of just one is just a better idea overall.

A new era to go into

The potential to move forward

With the remakes of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 being received so well, a new entry in the series can take examples from them and really push the series into a new era. Both games introduced new locations and new faces into the series, despite having the majority of them retreading territory from their original releases. Bringing the series into new parts of the world can spotlight the hobby of skateboarding in new and unique places that the series has yet to explore. Of course, the wackiness and over-the-top humor of the series can still play around with where players find themselves skating, but there’s a lot of potential for creativity like this. Instead of an American wasteland or traditional skate park in North America, why not go to other lesser-known countries and environments that aren’t always given a spotlight? Places to skate in that we haven’t really seen before, which could really push the boundaries that the series first established years ago.

At the same time, the remake of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater brought in more playable skaters and broadened the outreach of who was into skateboarding. With more men and women skaters being featured prominently, there’s also the potential to introduce more unique and stylish tricks that can be associated with newer faces. The kinds of tricks and combos within the games are already crazy, but things can be taken even further in ways that could feel like a breath of fresh air, despite being based on a foundation that’s been around for a while. Concepts like this could also be a gateway to opening up a better approach to creating custom skaters, with more options for appearance and what types of tricks can be done.

And yet, all of this can be complimented by a better approach to online multiplayer, something the recent remakes have dipped into slightly. One of the best aspects of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was competing with friends in multiplayer, whether it was a Score Attack mode or something like HORSE. A newer Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game needs to capitalize on this by giving more modes for players to engage with online, especially if it involves more than just a few characters skating at a time. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 had something like this, but it was still limited, and could definitely be expanded upon in a new game. The more options, the better for everyone.

For the love of skating

As much as the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater remakes are beloved, they don’t need to be where the series remains moving forward. There’s great potential for the series to reinvigorate itself with new games that take what we love about the classic skateboarding and push things further ahead. Nostalgia can be a powerful thing that works well for a long time, but it can also be a trap for stagnation and mediocrity. The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games and the series as a whole are too much fun to ever become something like that. We don’t need more remakes of older Tony Hawk games anymore, we just need more fun new skateboarding games like only the Tony Hawk series can give everyone.

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