We’ve got some good news for skateboarding game fans: Legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk revealed during an interview that he’s working with Activision on a new project.
“I wish I could tell you more, but I can tell you that I’ve been talking to Activision again, which is insanely exciting,” he said in an interview with Mythical Kitchen posted Thursday. “We’re working on something. I think it will be something the fans will truly appreciate.”
Hawk had previously worked with Activision on the Pro Skater series, kicking off the defining skateboarding game franchise. It became a huge hit thanks to its intuitive controls and flexibility in pulling off tricks. It would also go on to produce spinoffs like Underground and American Wasteland. We’re now coming up on the series’ 25th anniversary, and the Pro Skater X account has been updated with an anniversary banner, as spotted earlier this month by Wario64, a video game deals and news account on X (formerly Twitter).
You can watch the full video below; the discussion of the Pro Skater series starts at around 22:42.
The future of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater franchise has been up in the air since the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 remake was canceled in 2022. Studio Vicarious Visions had previously worked on the series starting with Pro Skater 2, and had cycled back to it with the critically acclaimed Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 in 2020. However, Vicarious Visions was moved and absorbed into Blizzard Entertainment. It is now known as Blizzard Albany and is working on the latest Diablo games.
While it was never officially announced, Hawk revealed the next remake was canceled after the merger.
“That was the plan, even up until the release date of [Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2],” Hawk said. “We were doing [Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater] 3 + 4, and then Vicarious got absorbed, and then they were looking for other developers, and then it was over.”
Hawk also took the time during the Mythical Kitchen interview to explain how the Pro Skater series came about. He had been pitching a skateboard game around town with a programmer, but many studios turned down the idea. Hawk said that one studio even told him that skateboarding wasn’t popular enough. Either way, Activision heard he was shopping the idea around and made contact, saying they had a perfect engine for skateboarding. The rest is history.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.