Skate Devs Give Early Look At New Tricks

Electronic Arts’ reboot of its popular skateboarding franchise Skate is slated within a 2025 release window. Developer Full Circle even confirms its early access period is “just around the corner.” After months of playtesting and teasing with small trailers and gameplay snippets, what new features can we possibly expect from the highly anticipated free-to-play game. Beyond its new San Vansterdam map, details have been fairly sparse, but it looks like the developers have a few new tricks up their sleeves.

In a recent video where Full Circle answered community comments about Skate, Cuz Parry and Deran Chung gave some new details about its revamped trick system. Arguably the most notable new features are the additions of three new tricks: wallies, slappies, and polejams. Parry and Chung describe these tricks as “game-changers,” as they allow players to maneuver on certain obstacles in ways never seen in the franchise. The basis for all these tricks seems to be the wallie. In the simplest explanation possible, it is a trick where a skater quickly pops on and off a wall. This is not to be confused with a wall ride (a trick previously featured in the Skate franchise) which is where a skater rides along the side of a wall.

Slappies are essentially wallies, but instead of popping off the wall, a skater will go into a grind. It’s called a slappy because the skater will literally “slap” their board into a wall or curb to get into the grind. Polejams are also similar to wallies, however, instead of jamming a board into a wall, the skater rides head-on into an angled pole sticking out of the ground to grind it.

A couple of other features Parry and Chung discussed briefly are pre-winds and flip speed. In actual skateboarding, when someone attempts to do a trick that requires them to spin, they will wind their body to give themselves more momentum when they attempt the spin trick. In the Skate games, this was not an option, and all players had to do was hit left or right on the left analog stick to spin their skater. Flip speed was also not a factor in previous Skate games. Now, players will be able to control their flip speed to some degree for more stylish and realistic results.

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EA’s skateboarding franchise is known for popularizing the “flickit” control system. Instead of the button combinations used in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games, players used the right analog stick to simulate the feeling of flicking a board. Although it saw many advancements between 2007’s Skate and 2010’s Skate 3, it looks like the studio isn’t done innovating on its influential skateboarding control scheme.

Currently, the only way to play Skate is through its PC and console playtesting periods. However, those interested must sign up in order to be considered to check out the pre-alpha version of the game. Full Circle also stated that there will be mobile playtesting, but it isn’t quite ready yet for the public.

Are you excited for Skate to finally return? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.