GAME CLEAR No. 244 -- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4
video games game clear activision iron galaxy tony hawk's playstation ps5Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 (2025, Multiplatform)
Remix/Remake Of: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 (2001, Multiplatform), Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 (2002, Multiplatform)
Original THPS3 and THPS4 Developer: Neversoft
Original Publisher: Activision
Remake Developer: Iron Galaxy
Remake Publisher: Activision
Clear Version: PS5
Clear Platform: PS5
Clear Date: 7/22/25
| Why should I care? |
|---|
| If you think the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater engine is a perfectly tuned vehicle for expression and merrymaking like I do, this is still absolutely a vector for that. |
Don’t forget the joker
Man, I really wanted to launch into this blog post saying this game kicked ass. I really loved Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, and I hoped I would feel the same about this one, especially since (I think?) Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 is my favorite of the THPSes. That has not transpired. It’s not because the experience of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 has been neutered (I think that matters less to me than most). In fact, I think it’s mostly personal.
Maybe I’m too good at these games? It takes very little effort for me to melt through the goals included with each park as a seasoned series vet. But then, that didn’t really impact my enjoyment of 1+2.
Maybe I’m just not in the mood for Hawk at the moment. Maybe, rather than another repackaging, I need something truly novel to reignite my interest in the series.
I don’t know. And that’s not to say I had a bad time. It’s still THPS, and that goes a long way. Even as it’s this weird gestalt mashup of two pretty distinct games, it still shines brightly when you’re stringing together a brilliant combo and clearing some of the more clever goals. Even though the soundtrack is almost entirely new instead of almost entirely old, I’ve enjoyed being exposed to music I otherwise probably wouldn’t have been (just as I was with the originals).
It does also feel weird to be playing this in the wake of Vicarious Visions’s absorption into Blizzard. They were the rightful heirs to the Tony Hawk franchise, and it sucks that they were relegated to Overwatch skins or whatever. It sucks a lot, actually! But I will commend Iron Galaxy on a job well done. None of those decisions were theirs.
Anyway, all this is to say that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 is pretty damn good, but it’s a remake of a couple of games I probably already squeezed all the juice from many years ago. Can’t fault the game for that, but it makes my enjoyment of it milder, I think!