Skate Shows a Path Forward for Games Like NBA Live if EA Can Get Out of Its Own Way

I’m here today to proclaim that skate. or Skate 4 or the new Skate game — whatever you want to go with — is absolutely incredible…and it also sucks worse than the Detroit Tigers do right now.

I don’t think I can remember too many games, and definitely not sports games, where two competing forces are at such odds with each other to make me feel this amount of of simultaneous love and hate for it.

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The most obvious love/hate example might be any recent NBA 2K game for some of you, but that’s hate for microtransactions more than the game itself. The “hate” I feel for Skate at times is not just the “business” side of it, it’s the whole vibe.

So, yeah, there’s a lot I want to say about Skate, and I will, but I’ve also been looking really hard at this whole project the last couple years because it’s unlike anything EA has done with any sports/sports adjacent game.

Whether it’s a “test case” or not for future EA (sports) games probably depends on how this whole early access period goes, but I do believe it’s clear this could work based on what Skate is doing well right now.

However, will it work? I have doubts considering the company involved, but EA is capable of doing good things — we’re back in the hopium/copium stage with Battlefield 6 right now if you need proof of that one.

Either way, beyond Skate itself, I’ve always had an eye on this game for what it could mean elsewhere. We don’t generally ascribe what happens with skateboarding games to the broader sports game scene, but this time around I think we should — at least a little bit.

I (selfishly) say that in part because I’ve been open about my appreciation for Rematch this year. I want new sports game experiences. I crave them. We can always think back on the multiple “sim” games for each sport we used to get every year, and those are important, but we also had plenty of Mutant Leagues and NBA Jams and Mike Tyson Punch-Outs to fill in the gaps as well.

So while Rematch has hit a rough patch — as a lot of “comp” games do — where the developers are now split between trying to satiate the top-end players and everyone else, it doesn’t change the fact that in terms of raw gameplay hours, it’s the sports game I’ve played the most this year.

This would make it my sports game of the year because that’s usually my top determining factor, but I’m not here today to proclaim that (I don’t have to because it’s only September, stop rushing me!).

I bring up Rematch because even if it’s not free to play, it’s doing something unique and not trying to be something to everyone. That is another entirely valid angle to take with sports games, and I hope more Rematch-like games exist in the future, but that’s not what Skate is trying to be either. No, Skate clearly does want to be something to everyone (for better or worse).

Instead, I think PES/eFootball is the other game you could point to that’s tried something like what Skate is attempting, and it does fail in some of the same ways Skate currently does, which is notable.

That being said, Skate is also in a much better place than eFootball ever has been in its free-to-play life (and that’s especially true if you go back and look at what eFootball was on day one). Skate is ready-made right now to be a serious contender if they start building towards it, and I do think this is why it could show other sports games a new path forward.

Skate Can Show The Way For More Sports Games — If EA Allows It

With that preamble out of the way, let’s get into why Skate works. The gameplay is f*cking phenomenal. It is better than Skate 3 ever could imagine being. The best way I can put it is it’s probably what you think Skate 3 felt like if you just think back on your memories of it.

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