Tony Hawk Professional Skater 3+4 remaster was impressed by YouTube and Reddit threads

Skilled skater Jamie Foy remembers his first time enjoying a Tony Hawk Professional Skater recreation.

Having been on a skateboard since he was a yr previous, Foy noticed Tony Hawk Professional Skater as a method to see himself in a online game, unlocking a world of creativity and inspiration for his craft that he’s by no means seen earlier than.

“As soon as I received into enjoying skate video games and realizing that I can do all these completely different tips and that I can do all of those on the street, it made me fall in love with road skating,” Foy mentioned over Zoom. “I fell in love with road skating as a result of the world is already on the market, with so many alternative constructions, so now you must go and create an artwork with it, which is one factor Tony Hawk Professional Skater confirmed me.”

That inspiration would take Foy to the streets of Australia (his favourite place to skate, because of the construction and use of stone and granite within the streets), Spain, and now into the world of Tony Hawk Professional Skater 3&4 Remastered, the place he turns into a playable character within the gaming collection he grew up enjoying. The sport can be accessible July 11. Virtually 5 years after the final launch of the sport, the franchise got here again to trendy gaming, however the aim is each to be an ode to the earlier video games, whereas ushering in a brand new period of skating.

Kurt Tillmanns’ first expertise with Tony Hawk got here by Tony Hawk Professional Skater 3. As a child, he would tag alongside together with his older cousins and mates who would let him play the sport. As he describes it, the sport places him in a “zen” state, the place he would soar into free skate within the metropolis of Rio and trip round for hours. Quick ahead to 2025, Tillmanns is now main the inventive imaginative and prescient behind the remastering of the sport he performed as a child, the pinnacle of the mission behind THPS 3&4 Remastered.

To be able to carry the remastering justice, he needed to seek the advice of the best scribes and philosophical boards for the place to go.

“We pored over quite a lot of the Reddit threads and YouTube movies,” Tillmanns mentioned over Zoom. “We went again into the historical past books and that undoubtedly knowledgeable our course of all through the event of the sport.” Tillmanns additionally mentioned that widespread modding (including modifications to widespread video games to maintain them up to date) communities corresponding to Tony Hawk: Underground Professional helped to tell the event workforce on what the followers of the sport need and have been including in by way of mods within the time the sport has been away.

Embracing the modernity of their followers and skaters whereas conserving the spirit of the sport alive was one of many greater challenges Tillmanns and the inventive workforce confronted when remastering THPS 3&4, however the one factor that unites each is the tradition of skating. That’s mirrored within the soundtrack, which is without doubt one of the greatest claims to fame that the gaming franchise has, however it goes deeper than that. Skateboarding in itself is simply cool. From the music, to the clothes, to the liberty {that a} board and a random sidewalk can provide you. It’s much less structured orchestral music and extra freelance, and Tillmanns had to ensure he stored that spirit alive. To do that, he talked with the brand new skaters which are within the recreation, together with Foy.

“They [the skaters in the game] got here to us with their concepts for what their characters put on, tips they might do or sure issues which are distinctive to them,” Tillmanns mentioned. “Then we’ll go to the skaters and try to incorporate our imaginative and prescient into their character, however we wish to guarantee that what we add finest represents the skater as an individual.”

Due to how distinctive skating is, being certain so as to add the distinctiveness of every skater helps to hammer residence the artwork kind behind skateboarding–while everybody skates, every fashion is exclusive to each skater. “It’s form of like taking a look at a portray,” Foy mentioned. “You see a sure portray and you’ll inform who the artist is behind it. That’s like watching a skater and after they skate a sure means, you may inform who it’s. Skating helps you develop your personal fashion and artwork kind, turning into your personal artist by that.”

Tillmanns used the phrase, “unbelievable areas and forbidden locations” to explain the brand new environments within the recreation. A preferred forbidden place is “Waterpark”, which Tillmanns describes to me as a shutdown theme park in the course of the desert the place you may skate by a waterslide tube. The inspiration for that one? After all, YouTube. “We’ve seen a bunch of YouTube movies of skaters skating down these previous closed down water parks, and know that’s an actual skater fantasy,” Tillmanns mentioned. “Once we began to construct it out, we wished to make it even crazier. Simply asking questions like what if the waterslide have been 60 ft excessive, or what when you might undergo a loop? We wished to point out that there was nonetheless juice in creating new Tony Hawk ranges.”

Foy hopes the creativity of the remastered THPS 3&4 exhibits children a brand new world of creativeness, the place they will push the bounds of what can and may’t be executed on a skateboard. “You may watch a skater do a trick in a video or go exterior and check out it, however when it will get exhausting you may come inside and let your thoughts go wild on the sport and see all of the loopy tips you are able to do, then say that you are able to do those self same issues in the future,” Foy mentioned. “Tony Hawk Professional Skater is accessible to everybody, and with how prevalent video video games are, it’s cool to see a skater have a great skating recreation to get inspiration from.”

Whether or not you’re an aspiring skater, or somebody attempting to grind rails on a lazy river, Tony Hawk Professional Skater 3&4 Remastered has one thing for everybody, and thru listening to the present era, have constructed a recreation that may face up to time as soon as once more.