After more than a decade of waiting for another installment in the popular Skate series from Electronic Arts, fans have finally gotten another Skate game, not in the form of Skate 4, but instead with .skate. Most notably, the newest game departs from the franchise’s roots to take a free-to-play approach. With fans finally getting the chance to play it for themselves, the reviews for .skate have been “Mixed” on Steam, where the game currently has 34,000 reviews.
One of the more notable complaints from fans leaving negative reviews has been the game’s inability to run on systems operating on Linux. This is a common problem among EA games, which use anti-cheat software that cannot function on the operating system. This can have an impact on the reach of the game, particularly for the challenging hoops required to get games with this anti-cheat to run on the popular Steam Deck mobile gaming PC system. For a game like .skate that feels perfectly suited to playing on the go, this has had the effect of limiting the potential reach of the game.
Despite the mixed reception and limiting factors, however, that has not meant the game is not getting significant reach, as a recent tweet from the game’s official X account announced. With Season 1 of the game set to kick off today, EA announced that it has seen 15 million unique players take to the digital streets of San Vansterdam.
While it’s clear that there is high interest in the series, both from longtime fans and folks interested in trying it out with the $0 barrier to entry, what remains to be seen is if the game has the staying power required to last for the long haul. A successful Season 1 while interest is still high would go a long way to establishing .skate as another success for the beloved franchise.
