On his 52nd birthday, Skateboarding Pro Tony Hawk announced on twitter that Tony Hawk 1 and 2 will be receiving remasters. Said remaster will be released on Xbox One, PS4, and PC (via the Epic game store) on September 4th later this year. With it will be all the original skaters, all the original skate parks, all the original tricks, and most of the original sounds (because, licensing issues). There will be some new tricks, a revamped create-a-park editor, local/online multiplayer, and enhanced graphics.

When it originally launched in 1999, the Neversoft developed Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater set a new standard with it’s style of skateboarding. THPS 2, released a year later, further upped the ante with new content, and a park creator. The series would span several installments throughout the 00s with high sport such as Tony Hawk’s Underground 1 & 2, and American Skateland. However the series would peter out by the end of the decade, as EA’s Skate would achieve dominance in the video game skating field. Moreover, publisher Activision would turn its focus toward then then-popular Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises. The series would hit rock-bottom when developer Neversoft was dissolved and replaced by Robomodo. Robomodo’s games included 2009’s Ride and it’s follow up Shred, both of which utilized a skateboard controller. They would also produce 2015’s Tony Hawk pro skater 5, released well after everyone moved on from the series. It should be noted that 1, the game rushed to market only because the license was going to expire that year and Activison wanted to cash in one last time before they did, and number 2, the game shipped needing an 8 gig download. This downloaded included the rest of the game. What was on disc was only the tutorial. You can learn all about it from Larry Bundy jr. The upcoming remaster wouldn’t be the first time Activison made a remake of Tony Hawk. Tony Hawk HD hit Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2012. The game contained a mixture of levels from TH 1, 2, and 3. Unfortunately it would be delisted in 2017.

The Skating game genre has been making somewhat of a resurgence these past few months. The kickstarter funded Session by Crea-ture studios is currently on Steam early access and is coming soon to Xbox One later this year. Similarly Skater XL, also in Steam early access is also making waves. Of course, fans are waiting on EA to announce Skate 4 any day now (in the meantime, Skate 3 is backwardly compatible on Xbox One). Can tony Hawk HD become the king of the skatepark once again? We’ll find out later this fall. The game will cost $39.99 for the regular digital version, $49.99 for a deluxe edition, and $99.99 for a collector’s edition. Activison promises post-launch support down the line. Now I’m a little concerned about Activison’s reliance on monetization these past several years, and we’ve already seen at least two cases of the company adding microstransactions to re-mastered games whose previous versions didn’t have them. Hopefully that won’t be the case this time around.

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