Excitement for skate has probably never been higher, so EA and developer Full Circle has started up a a blog series called “The Grind”, with volume 1 out now.
Still confirmed for early access later this year, volume 1 of The Grind talks a bit about the skate insider playtest: “To date, we’ve invited more than 200K players into the playtest, and that massive amount of feedback (over 30K posts on the playtest forums and over 20K survey responses) has helped steer the direction of skate. and improve the gameplay and performance.
So thank you, testers, for all that you’ve done so far and continue to do. And if you’re reading this and still waiting for an invite, don’t worry, we’re planning on sending out another large wave of invites in June.”
Some stats were also released on the blog, as follows:
- More than 16 million kickflips
- More than 4.8 million 50-50 Grinds landed – nothin’ but bolts!
- The Longest Grind (so far) – more than 200 meters! That’s about 15 school buses!
- More than 40 million Total Wipeouts – Ouch!
- More than 6.5 million Challenges completed
There’s also a Q&A section, with questions such as “Is skate still launching in 2025?”, to which the team says yes: “We are still planning on launching in Early Access later this year. We have an ambitious vision for skate.: an ever-growing, ever-evolving skateboarding sandbox that expands over time with the feedback of the players living in San Vansterdam. Our Early Access launch will only be Day One of that experience, a starting point from which new features, improvements, and content will be added over time.”
It’s also confirmed there will be no offline mode, but there will be cross-play and cross-progression, even in the playtest. The team also addresses the inclusion of microtransactions in the playtest, saying: “We know that using real money during a playtest is a little unusual, but we think it’s the best way to properly assess and adjust the system before launch. If you see prices or other things changing over time, please understand that this is normal. And of course, you will receive the amount you spent during playtesting in San Van Bucks (SVB) when we reset for Early Access launch.”
The team adds: “Like we said, if you choose to participate in this test and spend real money, whatever you spend will be returned to you in SVB when the game launches for Early Access. If you buy $20 of SVB, you will enter Early Access with $20 worth of SVB waiting for you on the same EA account.”
skate is due for release in early access later this year.
