In 2020, Electronic Arts announced a reboot of their highly-popular Skate series. In 2021, the company formed a new studio, Full Circle, that would develop the title. Now, in 2022, EA has finally broken its silence on the subject of Skate once more.
Recently, we had an announcement from Full Circle concerning the state of Skate. The studio described the game as being in a ‘pre-pre-pre-alpha’ stage of development. Alongside the announcement, the studio also released media showing off various aspects of gameplay in this early developmental stage.
From what we can see in the trailer, a great deal of texturing and polishing has already been done. However, the studio is not shy with the less finalized content it shows off. The trailer basically shows us a little of what the game might look like when it’s done, and a lot of what it looks like in its current state.
We see primitive rigging, untextured models, and bare-bones environments. One other detail that we see in the trailer is the dense concentration of figures interacting with one another. This potentially hints at Skate featuring a rather hefty player count when the servers go live.
The most interesting aspect of the early development announcement however is that the EA and Full Circle are opening up Insider registrations for the Skate reboot. This means that fans of the game will have a never-seen-before opportunity to play the game in its early pre-pre-pre-alpha stage and provide the developer with invaluable feedback.
EA recently allowed high-profile YouTubers to contribute to the redesign of numerous characters in The Sims 4, but this is far more impressive. Essentially, this is an opportunity for players to shape the game before it even launches officially.
‘We’re very early in the development of skate. and are bringing players into the game much sooner than is the norm in our industry. We’re incredibly passionate about skate. and want to ensure we’re building the best possible game, and that’s why we want you playing and providing feedback early enough for us to make meaningful decisions and changes ahead of a worldwide launch.’
If you’d like to register for closed playtesting of the Skate reboot, head to the EA registration portal. In other EA news, we’ve recently just seen the launch of the new Werewolves pack for The Sims 4! Don’t get too excited though; as has been the trend for quite some time now, EA has released the pack without attending to major bugs.