Gamers got details on the much anticipated new Skate game thanks to a developer blog.
The details were included in the latest The Board Room video by EA and Full Circle.
Some of the key takeaways include the game’s official licensing as Skate., which makes sense given we learned developers are making the game free-to-play with live service giving it some (in an ideal world) longevity.
“Our vision was not a game that you’d play through and ‘beat,'” Isabelle Mocquard, head of product management on Skate, said. “But something that you can regularly come back to and discover new things. Our deram is that Skate. never ends.”
Mocquard said the business model for microtransactions will focus on cosmetics and “convenience,” and developers want to create “a healthy model that will allow us to continue investing back into the game.” Other considerations include seasonal drops and live events, but the team is “exploring different options.”
“I want it to be very clear that it’s not a pay-to-win game. There won’t be any gameplay areas hidden exclusively behind a paywall. Players won’t be able to buy any gameplay altering advantages,” Mocquard said.
The game’s creative director Deran Chung spoke with The Verge in an interview posted on Thursday, where he expanded on Skate.
“It’s an authentic evolution of the franchise and taking what Skate 3 was in 2010 and bringing it to now and to the future,” Chung told The Verge. “That is not only an evolution of the franchise, but it’s an evolution of where skateboarding is and was from 2010 to now and also where games are from then to now.”
Developers in The Board discussed “Collabozones” which will be areas built by players together that will or can appear in other people’s worlds in real time.
“You don’t know when you jump into the city what’s being built, what was built, or what’s going on,” Chung told The Verge. “You jump in, and it’s like, ‘Oh, shit, what is that? Like a human Plinko wall? I need to go check that out.’”
Chung expanded on moderation in the ‘Collabozones,’ noting the team is taking it seriously.
“I can’t say exactly how we’re going to tackle every problem, but it’s something that we’re already cognizant of and know that we will need to be policing,” Chung said. “The good thing we have with our game is that you’re not going to have to live in fear. It’s not like other games where there’s guns and violence. There’s none of that in our game. Policing will be for, I guess, sillier, lighthearted things. But we definitely want to make sure that there is a safe space for every player to come in and be able to enjoy themselves.”
Skate. will release on PlayStation, Xbox and PC and will offer cross-play and -progression. No word on a release date, as the game is in very very very early development (as evidenced by the ‘pre-pre-pre-alpha gameplay’ watermark on the screenshots).
“I think the word ‘launch’ is an interesting word for us because of the way we are developing the game and the fact that we want to get players’ feedback very, very early,” Mocquard said. “We are just very flexible with what’s going to be the list of things that will be available at launch because I think that it will depend. It will depend on what our fans are telling us. To be honest, I can’t share that list with you because we want to build it with our players’ feedback.”
