The first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games are coming to modern platforms with a remaster called Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, publisher Activision announced Tuesday. It’s due out on September 4th, 2020, for PlayStation 4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One, Xbox One X and PC via the Epic Games Store.
The remastered collection will include the original levels, pro skaters, and tricks from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, as well as tricks from later games, like the revert, lip tricks, and wall plant.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 will also feature “a large majority of the original soundtrack,” Vicarious Visions said; “only a small handful of songs” didn’t make it in. The remaster’s reveal trailer confirms at least one song Dead Kennedys “Police Truck” and returning artists Goldfinger, Powerman 5000, Bad Religion, Millencolin, Naughty By Nature, Papa Roach, Primus, Lagwagon, and Rage Against the Machine.
The new title has modernized Create-A-Skater and Create-A-Park modes, HD graphics, and all of the levels, moves and pro skaters from the original games. That includes Tony Hawk, Bucky Lasek, Steve Caballero, Geoff Rowley, Andrew Reynolds, Elissa Steamer, Chad Muska, Eric Koston, Rodney Mullen, Rune Glifberg, Kareem Campbell, Jamie Thomas and Bob Burnquist. There’s also local and online multiplayer, plus new challenges, goals and secrets.
Vicarious Visions and its parent company, Activision, have a plan to put Pro Skater back on the pop culture radar, and it involves another icon of the early 2000s — Jack Black. The gameplay premiere of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 is available now on Black’s YouTube channel, JablinskiGames, starring Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo and Tony Hawk himself.
It’s no surprise that Activision would target YouTube instead of Twitch for the Pro Skater premiere. Not only does JablinskiGames have more than 4.5 million subscribers, but Activision signed a deal this year making YouTube the exclusive host of the Call of Duty League, Overwatch League and its other esports endeavors. While games like Valorant are hosting huge reveal events on Twitch with a focus on streamer interaction and live gameplay, Activision is tied to YouTube, where pre-recorded video thrives.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 certainly reaches a higher level of graphical fidelity than Pro Skater HD, which was released on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in 2012. The new remaster will support HDR lighting and 4K resolutions on PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, as well as capable PCs. The new remaster will also come with revamped menus and other modern quality-of-life features, as well as necessary features like lightning-quick reloads of levels when a run doesn’t go as planned.
Also paramount to the THPS experience: that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 unequivocally feels like the original games, Oneal said.
“We actually have former Neversoft employees [at Vicarious Visions], many of us have worked on the franchise in the past, and we remember and we know what it feels like,” Oneal said. “We dug into Neversoft’s codebase we were able to pull the handling code out of there, bring it into the engine that we’re in now and update it to make sure that we are making that feel exactly the way you remember it but updated with modern animation. It just looks incredibly smooth and the fidelity is fantastic.”
Nailing that feel also requires adapting the first two games’ controls for modern game pads, Vicarious Visions studio head Jen Onea said.
“We had to spend a good amount of time to make sure that the game feels great whether you want to use the d-pad or the [analog] stick,” she explained. “I think some of the people who are the hardcore, old-school players, you’ll see their thumbs wandering to the d-pad. That’s what their muscle memory draws them to. And then of course, the newer players don’t know how to play any other way. So for us, we had to make sure that the handling felt good no matter how you play the game.”
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 is priced at $39.99, and a digital deluxe version with “unique content and in-game gear” costs $49.99. A collector’s edition will also be available for $99.99, and includes the game’s digital deluxe content and a limited-run Birdhouse deck. Those who pre-order a digital copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 will receive access to a playable demo, featuring the original game’s warehouse level, ahead of the game’s launch in September.
