‘Skate’ is a free-to-play “authentic evolution” of the franchise

EA has revealed more details about the upcoming Skate game, calling it an “authentic evolution” of the franchise that will be free-to-play.

During the first The Board Room presentation, general manager of Skate developer Full Circle, Dan McCulloch, described the new game as “an authentic evolution of the Skate franchise that can be enjoyed by all players for years to come” (via PCGamer).

“We knew that to support a never-ending, ever-evolving, free-to-play world of Skate, we’d have to look into different models for the game itself, which means that there will be microtransactions. And we know that this is a sensitive subject,” he continued.

“That’s why when we decided to explore this model, we made some hard ground rules to follow,” he said before promising no loot boxes, no pay-to-win options and no restrictions on maps or gameplay. In fact, the planned microtransactions won’t offer any “gameplay-altering advantages” at all.

Creative director Cuz Perry went on to say that the upcoming Skate game, the fourth in the franchise, “isn’t a sequel. It’s not a remake. It’s not a reboot, a prequel, it’s not any of that. It’s not a remake or a remaster, whatever ‘re’ you can do.”

“That means we’re not an iterative title. There won’t be a Skate 5 through 10, we won’t be pumping them out all the time. We’re going to do this, we’re going to listen to what you guys say over the course of time, and put the features that you guys want into it,” he continued.

Also revealed in the 20-minute presentation was the location of Skate, with players able to explore the fictional California-inspired city of San Vansterdam.

There’s still no release date for Skate but it is being developed for Xbox and PlayStation platforms as well as PC, while a mobile version is also in the works. EA will be offering chances for fans to playtest the game though.

In other news, Unity CEO John Riccitiello has said that game creators who do not implement monetisation earlier in the development process are “fucking idiots”.