For some time now, I’ve been telling people that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 is not only the best Pro Skater game, but the best game in the entire Tony Hawk’s series, the best sports game of all-time, and for a certain type of player, a contender for gaming’s Mt. Rushmore. These people are going to play the remastered version in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, and then look at me funny. But trust me, it’s not my fault – they just took out the best part.
The reason THPS4 is the series’ pinnacle is because of how well it marries the gameplay conventions that evolved over time. The first three games, at least in remastered form with reverts and manuals added in, are all going to be basically the same. 3 is adding some new tricks, parks, and skaters, but it’s basically a straight choice between which maps you personally prefer, and what has the best soundtrack (to which the real answer is ‘all of them’). With THPS4 though, there’s so much more. Or rather, there was.
Career Mode Made THPS4 Better
If you’ve only played THPS1+2, you’ll know that how these levels work is you drop in with a two minute limit and have to hit a string of goals. Some are the same (if rising in difficulty), like landing combos, collecting SKATE, earning High Scores, and finding the Secret Tape. Others are unique to each map, like hitting a specific gap, doing a certain trick in a certain place, or pulling off moves to grab collectibles. It’s simple, but it works.
Those of you with the gall to be younger than me, who started your Tony Hawk’s journey with THUG or perhaps even later, then circled back to THPS with the remaster, will remember open zone games with narrative quests (which were basically weird Jackass stunts) and a story you progressed through, giving you a reason to hit up each map in order, and may have been surprised by the simplified, arcadey style of the THPS games. What made THPS 4 special was that it married these two ideas together.
In Career Mode, you could explore the maps of the fourth game freely, skating around with no timer and speaking to NPCs on the street. They would give you these goals, some of which would be the same kind you’d find in the prior three THPS games, but they’d be more focussed.
Rather than kind of going for a high score but then bailing so you aim for SKATE but on the way you land two of the four wallrides you need so you hunt them down and end up doing nothing, the goals were dished out one at a time. This gave them more freedom to add some story, and made for a richer game. Except it seems like Career Mode won’t be in THPS4.
You Can’t Streamline THPS4
This comes from the official website for the game, which states that both THPS3 and THPS4 will offer “streamlined goals in a two minute format”, suggesting a truncation of Career Mode to fit the format of the other THPS games. THPS3 will not be affected by this, but it means THPS4 is not really THPS4 at all, but a new, likely worse game, that uses a better looking version of THPS4’s maps.
There are two major issues with this. Firstly, Career Mode was good. Ergo, it not being there is bad. It’s just basic maths, folks. But the second, and deeper issue, is how you make the game without it. THPS4 uses much bigger maps to accommodate the fact you’re meant to explore them at your own pace rather than hit every corner in two minutes. And while it’s true that you’re meant to replay the two minute maps to focus on different things at a time, that works because they’re so condensed.
Fitting THPS4 into this structure could mean the maps feel too vast and empty, or could mean cutting some of the stranger goals that only really worked in the context of giving you 30 seconds and a very specific set up. We do see skitching in the trailer (holding onto cars), so the new gameplay elements remain, but if they’re not going to be used for quests, they feel a bit pointless.
And, deflatingly, that’s what all this feels like. Of course I’m glad THPS3+4 exists. We’re closer today than we were yesterday to a bona fide new Tony Hawk’s game, and THPS3 I expect to be as brilliant as ever. I’m keen to revisit THPS4 for the nostalgia factor too, but if it’s just a two minute stop off at my favourite locations, it’s hard to get too excited. Maybe I’ll just play Free Skate and drift around aimlessly. At least that way I won’t time out.
- Released
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July 11, 2025
- Developer(s)
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Iron Galaxy