Update: For some reason, Tony Hawk announced a thing minutes before having a big to do interview and trailer about it. But we now have some more information that was missing from Hawk’s original text.
The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 remaster is being developed by Vicarious Visions, known most recently for its work on the Crash Bandicoot remasters, and will be coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC through the Epic Games Store on September 4. Digital pre-orders will grant you access to “The Warehouse Demo,” which has no release date at the moment. Here’s the reveal trailer:
Original story: If there’s one way I like to learn my game industry news, it’s by getting a text from pro skater Tony Hawk about some Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater remasters.
Back in October, Hawk opened up an account on a service that lets people text him through a number that forwards to his phone. By doing so, people were able to text him and presumably have conversations with him.
Text me at +1 (760) 492-6712
(for real; it’s me)— Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) October 18, 2019
But today, Hawk used the service for something else: to announce Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 are being remastered. While there’s no footage, release date, or even confirmed systems, the text says that it will contain all the original maps, skaters, and songs from the licensed soundtrack.
According to a text message from Tony Hawk, THPS 1 and 2 are coming back pic.twitter.com/cvokxAvC4i
— Wario64 (@Wario64) May 12, 2020
Last time the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series graced consoles it was a cross-generation game, with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 coming out for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Since we’re just on the cusp of a generational leap again, it would make sense for these remasters to be coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as well as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, but we won’t know for sure until the official announcement. Hopefully if they do end up being cross-generation games they’ll support Smart Delivery so everyone can still have their copies whenever they make the leap to next gen.
In other news:
- Sony Unites First-Party Games Under PlayStation Studios for PS5
- The House in Fata Morgana’s Controversy Shows the Difficulties of Localization
- ESRB Rating Says Cyberpunk 2077 Lets You Fiddle With Your Diddle
Both games originally came out in 1999 and 2000 respectively, and spawned the series that would go on to produce 17 games across both the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater name, as well as spin-offs like the Tony Hawk’s Underground subseries and Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland.
Given that these will feature the original skaters, it’s unclear at this point if these remasters are the new Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games Jason Dill let slip in a podcast interview last week, but considering Hawk mentioned that everything from the original game is coming back, it seems like it would have been a pretty decent opportunity to say “and also new skaters and other content will be added.” Hawk says the official announcement is incoming, so we’ll probably get the full look at what the plans are for the series in the next year fairly soon. Given that E3 season has been extended into August, however, “fairly soon” could mean anything from a week or two to a few months from now.
Whatever the case may be, it’s probably smart on everyone’s part to revisit old Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games before diving headfirst into a new one. Given that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 left a pretty bad taste in everyone’s mouth for being Not Good and rushed because Activision wanted to put a game out there before losing rights to the license, some time to go back to the well and reassess what made those games so popular back in the day will do everyone some good.
