Pro skater has bad news for Skate fans—but great news for Tony Hawk fans

Skateboarder and musician Jason Dill shared inside info on the future of the two biggest skating games, and the news is mixed.

Speaking on a new episode of The Nine Club podcast with Chris Roberts, Dill said that he was contacted by EA “about 10 months ago” about a project in the Skate series. But before you get your hopes up for the long-awaited Skate 4, the conversation centered around a mobile version of Skate 3, and Dill’s contact at the publisher told him that was all that was in the works. Dill, channeling all of us, says he replied, “No one wants your stupid mobile version of Skate 3. Make Skate fucking 4 already.”

By the sound of things, then, as of less than a year ago, EA hadn’t started any serious work on a full-fledged sequel to Skate 3. Even if Dill’s comments proved persuasive, we’d still likely be a long way off from ever playing a new entry in the series.

But all isn’t lost for fans of virtual skateboarding—Dill also lent further credence to the rumors that a new Tony Hawk game is coming in 2020. The skater said one of his songs will appear on the soundtrack, and that one of his boards will be among the designs players can pick. Both those licensing arrangements would involve paperwork, so it’s difficult to imagine Dill is misinformed. Earlier this year, an Australian band also claimed it had licensed its songs for a new Tony Hawk game, and late last month a German retailer apparently listed a game called Tony Hawk’s Alcatraz for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Of course, without any official announcement, we have no idea what a new Tony Hawk game might actually look like. Given the scathing critical reception of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 and the widespread reports that the licensing agreement between Hawk and Activision expired shortly after that game’s release, it’s likely this new title will be from a different publisher and not directly connect to the existing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series.