Activision released Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 this week. The game is the first in the main franchise to be released in the last 13 years. And just like most recently released spin-off games, Pro Skater 5 has already faced some pretty nasty blowback from gamers. That hate has been compounded by a number of serious glitches, including some that make even launching the game a lesson in patience.
Activision and the developers have kept mum on the problems, until yesterday. Activision told Polygon: “We are aware of the issues that players have experienced following the launch of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 and are working with the developer to address these so that we can continue to improve the gameplay experience for all of the Tony Hawk fans who have known and loved this franchise for more than 16 years.”
The earliest Tony Hawk games were very well received and even revolutionary for their time. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3, which was released in 2001, was the first PlayStation 2 game that could be played online. After Pro Skater 3, the franchise took a steady downturn, with each subsequent release garnering worse scores than its predecessor. This was only exacerbated by spin-offs that were even worse than the main games. For example, Tony Hawk Ride was a blatant attempt to profit off of the plastic peripheral boom. It garnered the worst reviews the series had ever seen, with many scores in the low 40s (out of 100).
The entire series is inspired by Tony Hawk, probably the best-known professional skateboarder of all time. He is respected within the sport as one of its creators. Besides video games, Hawk has also been an actor and created the Tony Hawk Foundation to build skate parks in underprivileged areas. He even got to skate on the White House grounds when he was invited to President Obama’s Father’s Day celebration in 2009.
