The New Skate Will Be A Free-To-Play Title

A new developer diary has revealed that the new Skate title, which has been officially dubbed simply “Skate.” (period included), will be a free-to-play game. The developer Full Circle decided to use FTP as monetization and shared a lengthy update video. 

Full Circle creative director Cuz Parry explains the decision to go FTP stems from the team’s desire for players across all platforms and budgets to easily access its upcoming skateboarding simulator. It wants the community to stay together and cites how DLC for previous Skate titles has strained the base. Skate is now able to support cross-play on consoles, desktop, and mobile. 

Skate is an FTP game that will feature microtransactions. But the team wants players to be friendly. Skate does not offer pay-to-win, and there will be no loot boxes. Additionally, paywalls won’t be imposed on map areas. Although cosmetics will no longer be the primary focus for monetization, you can still access these items by traditional means. According to the teams, it is currently looking at Apex Legends games as a reference point for its monetization model.

Full Circle describes Skate as neither a sequel nor a reboot but rather something closer to a platform that the team plans to support with new content and improvements for years to come. “There won’t be a Skate 5 through 10,” says Parry. “ We won’t be pumping them out all the time.” 

Skate also supports large amounts of multiplayer players. It has new collaborative building areas which allow users to build a range of innovative skate parks.  

This summer, a select batch of players can playtest an early version of Skate by signing up to become a Skate Insider on the game’s website. 

As for the launch, the team reiterates that Skate will arrive “when it’s ready,” so don’t expect it anytime soon. Skate will soon be available for PlayStation, Xbox, PC and mobile devices.

Skate being free to play? Please comment!