Among the many sports games that come around each year, a subgenre of video games that many fans enjoy are skating titles. From EA's Skate series to Skate Story, a new skateboarding title from Devolver Digital that sees a demon shred their way through the underworld, there is plenty of choice for a gamer who wants to grind and ollie without having to actually go outside and risk a scraped knee or chipped tooth. Even with so many skateboarding video games, the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise is still often touted as the king of them all.
Combining enough real tricks and techniques to keep skateboarding fans engaged while also being easy enough for non-skating gamers to learn, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater set the standard for how fun a skateboarding videogame could be. With fans consistently asking series namesake and famous skateboarder Tony Hawk when a new entry in the series was coming, the eventual announcement of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 remaster seemed inevitable. The game released in August 2020 to favorable reviews and a stellar fan reception that quickly saw it become the best-selling title in the franchise.
With such strong sales for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, fans expected that remasters of the other original Tony Hawk titles would be on the way. That was indeed the case, as developer Vicarious Visions had plans to recreate the 2001 and 2002 titles for current-gen machines. However, these plans were later scrapped following Vicarious Visions' merger with Activision Blizzard which was made official back in April 2021.
This news was confirmed by Tony Hawk himself, who said that up until the release day of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 remasters, that the plan was to do 3 and 4 as well. However, according to Hawk, Vicarious then got "absorbed and then they were looking for other developers and then it was over." It is assumed that when Hawk speaks of other developers that he means Activision wanted another team to take on the project as Vicarious Visions were working on Diablo 2: Resurrected at the time.
It is unfortunate for fans of the original Pro Skater titles that they won't see the latter games remade in the same way Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 were. However, this does not make the older games any less great, and it doesn't prevent newer games such as the aforementioned Skate Story or Rollerdome recreating that nostalgic Tony Hawk feel. With Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard looking more and more likely to go ahead, even that could bring about the resurrection of some old franchises like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.