The original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and its sequel Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 remain, for many of us, untouchable masterpieces. They weren't just well-made arcade-style skaters with tight controls and inventive sandbox levels to explore - they were genuinely formative experiences.
For this writer, and I know for many of my generation, the original Neversoft-developed games informed a lot of our choices in life. Obviously it inspired many of us to pick up skateboards and make idiots of ourselves... but also beyond that. The music we listened to, the friends we stuck with, and the way we dressed? A lot of that came from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and its sequels (up till 5, for obvious reasons).
There are plenty of classic games that have had a massive impact on all of us for different reasons throughout our lives, but I don't remember any other series having such a lasting, tangible impact on my tastes. Again, I know for a fact I'm not alone in that, so with the news that the first two iconic games in the Tony Hawk's series are being remastered in one handsome package comes a ton of excitement... but also some trepidation.
The original games are fantastic - and always will be - but they haven't exactly aged brilliantly. Certainly, there are things that should be tweaked and modernised. But just how much can you change about these games before you lose what made them special to so many of us in the first place? It's not an easy task, but it's something developer Vicarious Visions believes it's risen to for the recently announced remasters.
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The way the remaster controls is almost definitely going to be a chief concern among die-hard fans. Even if you go back to those original games today, they're actually surprisingly responsive for their age. Vicarious Visions seems confident that the classic control scheme has remained virtually untouched, and that intoxicating combo-based gameplay will be as engaging as it ever was.
"The challenge of a faithful remaster is knowing where to push the boundaries and what to keep sacred," Vicarious Visions chief operating officer Simon Ebejer told me over the phone. "So it's important to capture the original experience, but still have the room to modernise things to appeal to today's audience. And some of the ways that we're doing those things... the handling and controls are super tight. It's gonna feel like the originals and you're gonna get that excellent gameplay experience when you're in the game."
To help capture that essence, Vicarious Visions actually has a number of staff who used to work on the Tony Hawk franchise in some shape or form back in the day - including numerous team members who were at Neversoft and worked on the original games.
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"I myself was at Neversoft," Ebejer, who joined the now-defunct studio around 2006 told me. "I worked there for about nine years and our art director John Dobbie is also from Neversoft, he and I worked together on Tony Hawk games there. We've got our Lead Designer on the project had been working on Tony Hawk games originally at Activision and all through the work that Vicarious Visions have done on the franchise while he was at Vicarious Visions."
"Vicarious Visions itself does have a lot of experience with the franchise," he added. "There are a number of people at the studio who have worked on [Tony Hawk's Pro Skater], even though at times Neversoft, for example, was the lead studio. But Vicarious Visions was doing the handheld versions, the Nintendo versions... so there are a lot of people at the studio who have a ton of experience with the franchise and who truly love it. "
As part of that quest for authenticity, Vicarious Visions and Activision have once again worked closely with the legend that is Tony Hawk himself. The iconic skater was, of course, closely involved with the development of the original games and played a key part in developing the look, feel, sound, and direction of the beloved titles.
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"Tony has been super involved all the way along," Ebejer told me. "He's been involved on the marketing side and the PR side, but he's also been involved on the game development side. We send him builds regularly, we get his feedback. We ask his advice, it's an open dialogue. And we're really keen to make sure that he's been very hands-on and working closely with all of us. We're really keen on making sure that the game is authentic, and that's where Tony's head is at as well.
In order to preserve that spirit, Vicarious Visions has also worked hard to ensure that every pro skater and level from the original games is back in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 - Remastered. The studio has also done everything it can to try and secure the rights to a lot of the songs from those iconic original soundtracks, though it wasn't possible to fully achieve that dream.
"You know, it's been 21 years," Ebejer explained. "Music licensing has changed in that much time, so some of the licensers can't even be tracked down. But we've done a great job getting as much of the original soundtrack as we possibly can. So I think that fans are gonna be so stoked. They're gonna get to hear their favourite tracks from the original and I'm really excited."
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"Right now I'm excited to talk about having tons of music from the original soundtrack," he added when I asked if this meant we'd be seeing any new additions to the music in Remastered. "Including some of my favourites like Goldfinger, Rage Against The Machine, Anthrax, and Public Enemy."
Of course, you also can't simply bring a pair of games that are over two decades old to modern consoles without any concessions. The good news is that enhanced visuals, new online features, and even an overhauled UI are among some of the smart, welcome tweaks that Vicarious Visions has brought to the table.
"Obviously we've polished the visuals, but beyond that, the things that we've modernised are the UI," Ebejer explained. "It has the feeling of a modern game. The create a park system and all the tools that we have there for creating parks and people being able to share them online with other players, same with the create-a-skater system. And various things that we've done with challenges and progression to make it feel more like a game that you would play today."
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Fans of the series will no doubt be thrilled to learn about the return of the custom skater and park creation features in particular. For a lot of us at the time, building our own skaters and parks really helped us project ourselves onto a world that we wanted quite desperately to be a part of. Even if the real you couldn't ride a board if your life depended on it, you had the chance to create a virtual avatar that could.
Building parks was another awesome feature, if only because the majority of us built creations full of spike pits and made our friends try to escape from them. Being able to share these creations online will bring a whole new dimension to the game that wasn't there before, and it sounds like Vicarious Visions is fleshing out both create a skater and park builder with a more robust suite of tools.
"We really have [put more into building options]," Ebejer said. "There's all of the things that you'd expect from the old system, but we've improved the tools and the interface."
"There's a lot more ability for the player to customise things with the robust editor. And it'll enable new ways of customisation and modification of the pieces and the way that they fit together that I know, just from my own experience playing it, are gonna allow people to make more organic skateparks and be able to maybe even recreate their own hometown skatepark in a way they've never been able to do before."
With the ability to share creations online comes the delicious prospect of playing against friends online across a range of classic multiplayer modes like Graffiti, HORSE, and Tag. But that doesn't mean that local multiplayer - a staple of those original games - has been removed. In fact, Vicarious Visions is well aware of the importance of couch-based shenanigans when it comes to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
"We absolutely will [have splitscreen]" Ebejer told me emphatically. "We recognise that having local splitscreen is an imperative for this game. It was so much fun back in the day, right? And it still is. I think that a lot of players are gonna still wanna sit on their sofa next to their friends and try to best each other. We're absolutely supporting that along with online multiplayer."
With a whole range of new features that make use of modern consoles, as well as what sounds like a genuine commitment and care to honoring what came before, it could be that all the pieces are in place for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 - Remastered to be something very special indeed. You just have to wonder: could this lead to a bold new future for the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise? Surely it's about time we washed away the stink of 5 for a bold and beautiful sixth entry?
"I've gotta tell you from a developer perspective and someone who has worked on Tony Hawk games in one way or another at various points throughout my career, I'm super focused right now on making THPS 1 and 2 awesome" Ebejer said."But I'd always be super excited to continue to work on Tony Hawk content for as long as people want it."
I suppose how much people want it is the real question here. I have absolutely no doubt that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 - Remastered will be a huge hit - especially for those of us in our late 20s who still find themselves sitting up until 3am some nights watching Tony pull off his first ever 900 while holding back tears. Or maybe I'm the only one who still does that. Whatever.
But will it inspire a whole new generation to pick up skateboards and dive into Fu Manchu's back-catalogue? We'll have to wait until September 4th to find out, but I'm quietly confident that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 - Remastered will be able to teach the new kids some old tricks.
Featured Image Credit: ActivisionTopics: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Activision