During a hands-on preview attended by Screen Rant, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3+4 proved to be a nostalgic throwback that retains modern sensibilities. The Tony Hawk Pro Skater series has been a fixture of the gaming landscape for decades, with generations of gamers getting the chance to explore the skating scene from a first-hand perspective. The moves, visuals, and music have always been keyed into the skating sub-culture, with 2020's Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 proving there's still a place for the series in modern gaming.

That trend is even clearer with Iron Galaxy's follow-up to Vicarious Visions' entry, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3+4. Expanding on the scope of the original games while ensuring the controls and graphics feel tighter than ever, the game is a dream come true for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3+4 and sat down with Game Director Kurt Tillmanns to discuss the inspirations and influences that defined the new title.

Tony Hawk 3+4 Is Easy To Pick Up, Hard To Master — And It Couldn't Be Any Other Way

Natural World Exploration And Gameplay Experimentation Is Baked Into Tony Hawk's Latest Remaster

Much like its polished predecessor, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 is a throwback treat for franchise fans that brings plenty of unique modern touches and stylish additions to the title. Tony Hawk Pro Skater diehardswill feel right at home once they plug into the game, throwing themselves into absurd locales. The game's core mechanics feel familiar to anyone who has played the game, with a great deal of depth afforded to the player in of customization (even beyond the customizable skaters and skate parks).

Stats can be altered as they're discovered across over a dozen skate parks, allowing the players to adjust their avatars to nail specific challenges and tricks. The gameplay is tightly controlled but has a natural roughness reflecting skating to its core. It accomplishes the tricky proposition of feeling tightly controlled yet open to invention, allowing the players to push the envelope of what they can accomplish in any given run. That technical precision was key to the game's design and making sure players didn't lose their bearings amid the graphical upgrades of the title.

"For us," Kurt Tillmans explained, "the main things are really the tightness of the controls, the responsiveness to the frame rate... failing is part of the fun. It's easy to pick up, really hard to master. But as long as the game feels responsive, it feels good. You never have that moment of blaming the game. You know it's something you've done. 'I missed that grind, I didn't hit the button at the right time.' It's fun to learn. You can always trace back what happened to something you can do better next time."

One of the most important aspects of deg Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 was to encourage players to explore and experiment in the parks. One of the ways the title accomplishes this is by littering the parks with collectibles that can unlock new skills or costumes, as well as a focus on building challenges that are rooted in carrying on forward momentum. "Collectibles are fun," Tillmans noted with a laugh. "We brought back cash pick-ups... it gives players a new way to learn the parks. Nothing teaches you what's possible in a park more than those pick-ups."

"Seeing a cash icon in a place you're not sure you can go to, it leads you to figure out how to get there. Even the skate lines are put together in a way that they can become combo lines. A lot of people, their first time through, they'll collect the S-K-A-T-E letters piecemeal. Over time, they can figure out that this is actually one long combo line that I can piece together.

"It's part of the customization for each player's approach. It teaches players how the maps work." It's a natural success for the game, with each park encouraging plenty of natural exploration and experimentation. It's the kind of game where players will be committed to landing every trick they can think of, even if they don't nail the first few times.

Tony Hawk 3+4 Is All About Creating A Skater's Paradise

Iron Galaxy Updated Existing Tracks And Built Out New Dream Courses

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 is more than just a modern update to the previous entries in the series. While the game remasters some of the iconic settings from those games, like the Refinery in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and the College Campus in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, there are also some new locales that players can explore (and shred) at their leisure. This includes the Water Park in 4, which might be one of the most naturally exciting locations the series has ever produced.

When reflecting on the key ingredients to constructing an ideal skate park for the series, Tillmans revealed the core idea of the whole series is to create a "great skater fantasy. The first thing do is look for an iconic place that we want to set this. The second part is trying to give players a means to use every feature in the gameplay arsenal. You can grind all over the water park, you can do loop-de-loops, you can go down the slides, you can do all these things. That's the big thing — it has to be a playground."

That natural sense of exploration is present in the new parks for the game, but it also offered an opportunity to do something that some of the older maps simply couldn't manage. "A lot of the original parks were made before [several] game mechanics were introduced and refined. Now that we're making new parks, we can really make sure that there's an opportunity to use everything the player's disposal."

Part of the fun in deg that space for the development team was bringing that skater fantasy to life, all while providing plenty of dream moments. Exploring the Water Park, for example, is a great showcase for all kinds of natural challenges players can discover as they explore the new setting. Finding the balance between new ideas and nostalgic favorites was a critical aspect of the development of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4. "Let's take College as an example," Tillmans explained. "That layout is exactly how you it."

"For returning fans, they will boot up College and be like, yeah! I this! I can do all my favorite lines, I can do all my favorite combos. But we wanted to have added to it. The art direction for College looks a bit different. We didn't just want to throw a new coat of paint on it and call it a day. Now, College is themed around Game Day. It's dressed up, it's got the Chicken Hawk team, it's got the stadium full of fans. If you're a returning fan, you'll be able to explore it from a fresh [perspective]."

The Importance Of Cross-Gen And Authenticity In Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4

Final Thoughts On The Latest Tony Hawk Game

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 is also an incredibly impressive advancement for the series. The game brings back customizable parks and an emphasis on online multiplayer, but it was essential for Iron Galaxy to find a way for gamers to share their ion and fun. That's why it was so important to the team to ensure crossplay was included. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 will be available on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with players able to seamlessly play with one another across console lines.

Laughing at the idea that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater ended the console wars, Tillmans noted that "everybody is a fan of Tony Hawk games. Crossplay was something from day one that we knew we had to have in the game. It really is about trying to get as many people access to the game as possible. That way, you get a multiplayer that feels great. You need to connect with as many people as possible, and that's really what crossplay is about. It's about giving this game to the widest audiences it's ever had, and that extended into creating custom parks."

Another iconic element of the series has always been the soundtrack. Reflecting on putting together a new soundtrack, Tillmans noted that constructing the soundtrack "is a very collaborative process. There are a lot of opinions about which music should go into Tony Hawk games. We have lots of meetings, we actually talked a lot to Tony Hawk himself. He's very involved in the soundtrack. He talks to all the skaters, he knows the culture better than any game developer. He tells us what's hot, what people are listening to, all that."

"We really want fans to play this game and feel like they're being ingratiated into skate culture."

One of the most exciting additions to the roster for Tillman is Lupe Fiasco, a Chicago-based rapper. With Iron Galaxy being based in Chicago as well, it felt like a natural symmetry that they couldn't resist. "As a developer from Chicago, any time you're able to include an artist that's from your hometown, it fills you with pride. We're all huge fans of Lupe, so being able to include him in this game was a huge deal for us." That commitment to authenticity, in the presentation, soundtrack, and world-building, is paramount to the success of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4.

"It's always about doing right by the fans and representing skate culture properly," Tillman explained. "The skaters are the personality for the whole game. They set the tone for us when we go and recreate these parks. We want to have a vision of what these parks would look like in 2025 if they were taken over by skate culture.... take the water park. It's been completely taken over by skaters. Every inch of it has been tagged. This is their playground. We really want fans to play this game and feel like they're being ingratiated into skate culture."

In of raw execution, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 accomplishes that with flying colors. It's a throwback in all the best ways, nostalgic without being beholden to the past. The gameplay is tight, the presentation is stylish, and the trademark sense of cheeky fun is baked into every challenge. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 is a great proof that the series still has plenty of room to grow, and it's bringing fans new and old alike for the ride.