Free-To-Play EA Cult Classic ‘skate.’ Returns After 15 Years

By Danial Martinus • 02 Sep 2025 in Games

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It’s been a long time coming, but after 15 years of silence, the cult classic game skate. is finally rolling back into the spotlight.

On 16 September 2025, the series returns as a free-to-play, cross-platform game that’s set to reach players on PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. For fans who’ve been begging for a comeback, it’s pretty much a cultural moment.

A long, difficult project

First teased back in 2020, skate. has been a slow-burn project nurtured by EA’s Full Circle Studio, which was set up solely for the development of this new instalment. The announcement has sparked waves of nostalgia, but there’s also a lot of pressure.

After all, this is the franchise that carved out its own space in the gaming world with its “flick” system, an intuitive stick-based control scheme that makes every trick feel like a personal achievement. The return of that system, using EA’s Frostbite engine, is reason enough for longtime skaters (both virtual and IRL) to be excited.

The new trailer sets the tone perfectly. The intro is styled like a tongue-in-cheek David Attenborough documentary, panning serenely across San Vanamsterdam, the fictional city where players will shred.

The trailer then bombards us with a showreel of tricks, slams, and near-misses. It’s a nod to the wider skate community: the game has always been as much about falling on your face as it is landing the perfect kickflip.

Opening the doors for a wider audience than before

By making skate. free-to-play with full cross-play and cross-progression, more people than ever will be given the chance to experience the unique mechanics of the game. To some, it might be a purely corporate move to get more eyes on the game.

But if you really look into it, the series has always thrived on community, creativity, and self-expression. The free-to-play aspect feels like a genuine attempt to keep skate culture alive.

Of course, there’s still one lingering question: will it even live up to the hype? 15 years of anticipation is a heavy load to carry, especially with fans worrying about monetisation hijacking the core mechanics of the game.

Well, the game releases on 16 September. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Watch the teaser trailer below: