skate. is a free online multiplayer skateboarding sandbox game that released 16th of September for Early Access by EA. It is the the fourth instalment of the Skate™ franchise, a franchise that started in 2007. In skate. players get to explore the city of San Vansterdam freely on or off-board in a exclusively multiplayer world.
The games reviews on Steam were “Mostly Negative” when the Early Access first released. Players experienced the game crashing repetitively, being unable to leave the tutorial level, and long queues of thousands of players waiting to be let in the game – with the game often crashing once they were let in. Despite this, players stated that they had expected this from a game released by EA, unamused but not surprised.
Now, a few weeks after the games early access release, the Steam reviews have settled on “Mixed.” Most positive reviews are happy with the gameplay and free access to the game, however advising not to spend money on cosmetics as it “isn’t worth it.” The game works, and they can skate, which is the minimum the game should provide. On the other hand, most negative reviews are unhappy with the art-style, claiming it is bland and doesn’t reflect “skate culture” which should be colourful, even stating the game as “soulless.” They state the game to be a regression in the franchise; with no story line, no offline mode, and a constant pushing for microtransactions.
The Steam reviews have settled on 'Mixed'
Whilst the gameplay experience is reviewed negatively, the negative reviews on Steam also address the issues of the EA Javelin Anticheat – a kernel level anti-cheat – that they’ve decided to add alongside the game as a requirement. It prevents players who wish to play on Steam Deck or on a Linux OS to play the game. The kernel level also means it can detect the use of Virtual Machines, so even if you have the required specifications on a VM that runs the required Windows OS, the anti-cheat will still prevent you from playing the game. It also makes it unable to play using cloud gaming. Whilst EA claims it creates “fair play” on their games, it also prevents a large amount of players who want to play and appreciate their games from even accessing the games.
It is important to remember that skate. is still in development, as it only released as an Early Access. In the Steam descriptions, the developers state that they want to “evolve and grow based on player feedbacks” and that the Early Access is their “starting point” for new improvements and contents to be added with player suggestions. So despite the disastrous release day and continuing errors and bugs, players still continue to play, alongside the developers that continue to work on making the game better with each update – and hopefully one day it will surpass and become the best game in its franchise.