The late 90s and early 2000s were filled with popular trends that were a big part of many people's childhood. Skateboarding has been part of pop culture for decades, but it hit a new level of notoriety in the 90s, and eventually grew even more in the early 2000s with the release of video games that focused on skateboarding. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was the series that brought skateboarding games into mainstream popularity and was a massive success. The series went on to have multiple game releases before taking a significant hiatus in 2016, following some unsuccessful releases. The series made a big return in 2020 with the release of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, a remake of the original two games that began the franchise, which was developed by Vicarious Visions for multiple platforms.
Following the success of that remake, Activision paired up with developer Iron Galaxy to remake the next two installments, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4. Much in the same way as its predecessor, this remake brings back many of the classic elements and stages from the original games, while also tweaking a few aspects to make everything look and play better. While later games in the Tony Hawk series tried new ideas to mix up the gameplay and focus on the culture surrounding skateboarding, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 goes back to basics, with all the gameplay quirks and musical tracks that people loved. But for as much as the game does a lot of good by returning to its roots once again for fans, it doesn't always have a perfect landing with its new and classic tricks, but still manages to get things right.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83/100 Critics Rec: 87%
- Released
- July 11, 2025
- ESRB
- Teen / Lyrics, Mild Blood, Mild Violence
- Developer(s)
- Iron Galaxy
- Publisher(s)
- Activision
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- Genre(s)
- Sports
- Solid responsive controls
- Two career tours to play through
- Large roster of playable skaters
- Remade classic stages and new stages
- Limited body options for custom characters
- Some glitches while skating through stages
- Online multiplayer modes are shallow
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 pricing and availability
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 is available for the PlayStation 5 and PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, and PC via Steam. The game is available in two versions on all platforms: a standard edition and a digital deluxe edition. The standard edition can be downloaded on Xbox Game Pass for Xbox consoles, and also has cross-platform multiplayer. The digital deluxe edition of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 comes with some additional content that unlocks new characters and adds some new music tracks, along with some exclusive character creation items. The Doom Slayer and The Revenant characters can only be unlocked by getting the digital deluxe edition. The pricing for all editions of the game is the same across all platforms.
- Standard Edition Price: $49.99
- Digital Deluxe Edition Price: $69.99
Returning to the skate park
It all comes back to you
Source: Activision 
Source: Activision 
Source: Activision
Source: Activision 
Source: Activision 
Source: Activision
As a remake of the original games, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 does justice to all the best parts of those releases. Anybody who played the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 on the PlayStation 2 will remember how intuitive the controls were and how easy it was to get skating. Jumping right onto a stage to get big combos with a stream of tricks was easy, yet complex when going for the massive scores. Keeping things simple was always the strongest part of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games, especially for those who had never explored many other games that were about skateboarding. And this remake does exactly just that: following the simple route and not messing with an already winning formula.
The grinds and grab tricks that you know and love are present, along with all the ways you remember how to link them together for massive combos. The input and feel of the tricks remain exactly as they always have, which will feel very familiar to those who may have stepped away from the series for a while. This time, however, there's a much larger roster of skaters to pick from, with a total of 31 playable characters that come with their own unique tricks. This includes newer stars in the skateboarding world, including a number of female skaters who are making a name for themselves. It's a big change from previous games, which didn't always include many new faces.
While things might look a little bit different, mostly due to the 4K visual upgrade for the remake, the classic stages maintain their original looks, with a few minor additions for the new release. Luckily, the game features a few new stages that offer fresh spots to skateboard, but the majority of players will likely spend a lot of time revisiting the stages they remember, playing the tracks they heard back in the day. There's nothing wrong with the new stages; they have challenges and spots to do amazing tricks like others, but nostalgia is a big driving force in this remake.
A big part of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series was the music that was included with each game. Many punk and classic rock songs were highlighted by being included as background music, which delighted many players. For the most part, many of the classic tracks from the original games are included, with some notable exceptions that didn't make the cut. The same thing can be said for some unlockable characters that were a big surprise in the original releases, but have since been removed, most likely due to licensing reasons. That might upset some long-time fans of the series, but their absence doesn't significantly change the game in any way.
The grinds and grab tricks that you know and love are present, along with all the ways you remember how to link them together for massive combos.
Some custom stuff to play with
Limited options hold things back
With Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 comes a few creation modes that allow you to make a custom skater and a custom level to skate on. This is a neat addition to the series and gives more value to the overall package. But while the Create-A-Park mode has a lot of options to browse through when making a new stage, the options for custom skaters are much more limited. The selection of body types and structures is only a handful, making it somewhat difficult to get detailed about how you want a custom skater to look. There are definitely a lot of clothing and skateboard options to unlock and equip for a unique sense of style, but that can be undermined if everyone has very similar facial structures and overall body types. All skaters in the game can also have their tricks list customized, with the number of special tricks increased by playing and finishing the campaign tours.
The custom stages are where a lot of creativity will show. Making a custom park can take a lot of time, especially if you want to make a very fun and detailed one, but it's worth getting deep into. Not only can you cover a large area with items of your choosing, but you can also share your creations online pretty easily. At the same time, you can download and tinker with stages made by other people from the menus, which highlight the top-rated parks and other custom stages to explore. You can even search for specific parks in the menus, making it much easier to explore what the mode has to offer.
There are definitely a lot of clothing and skateboard options to unlock and equip for a unique sense of style, but that can be undermined if everyone has very similar facial structures and overall body types.
It feels like much of the energy went into giving the Create-A-Park mode the most freedom for players. There are enough tools and options to pick from that some people online have gone as far as to create custom stages based on other Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games, including entries like Tony Hawk's Underground, for everybody to download. Over time, this will become a major part of the online experience with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4, and should definitely be expanded upon in future releases.
Skating with people online
Those who skate together, vibe together
Like every other Tony Hawk's Pro Skater game, there's a competitive aspect to multiplayer. The online mode allows players to compete against each other in classic score attack or the new HAWK hide & seek match type. Score attack is exactly what every fan remembers from playing local multiplayer, where players are given two minutes to skate and get the highest score possible. It's simple yet incredibly fun to play online with multiple people on one stage. On the other side of this is HAWK, where players hide and seek out letters to score points. It's a twist on the multiplayer that seems interesting, but can offer a varying degree of fun compared to the other game type. Neither one of them is bad, but experiences with them will definitely vary from player to player.
If being competitive isn't your thing, and you just want to vibe with others online, then Free Skate is available as well. It's exactly as it sounds, letting players just get onto a stage and skate around without any objectives. That is the extent of the game modes in online multiplayer, but the local options are much more abundant. Local multiplayer has extra modes like Score Challenge, Combo Mambo, Graffiti, Combo Challenge, Horse, and Tag to choose from. This is far more than what you'll find online, which is very disappointing. Every one of those game modes could work well within a multiplayer setting, especially if there were options to have only two players playing with each other online, rather than just locally.
A nice throwback that could be better
As a remake and general return to the roots of the series, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 accomplishes the assignment in a good way. It has the gameplay you want, the stages you remember, and a few extra goodies thrown into the mix. The larger roster of characters is great, catering to a variety of players, and includes some neat unlockables that are welcome additions to the package. However, despite the remake getting the majority of things right, the limited custom skater options and online multiplayer modes could have taken it to the next level, making it a great remake of the original games. It's possible that future updates could change these things in different ways, but what's already there is what most people will be experiencing. If you want to take the vibe back to the early 2000s and have some fun shredding like you used to, then Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 can help with that.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83/100 Critics Rec: 87%
- Released
- July 11, 2025
- ESRB
- Teen / Lyrics, Mild Blood, Mild Violence
- Developer(s)
- Iron Galaxy
- Publisher(s)
- Activision
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- Genre(s)
- Sports
