Skate‘s Season 2 update is meant to push the free-to-play title toward a grittier, more realistic visual identity. But players say the game’s new character models have landed somewhere far stranger. After checking in with their in-game avatars following Thursday’s patch, many fans are claiming their skaters look dramatically worse, with harsher skin textures, darker tones, and mismatched hair, among other things. Personally, my player is looking a bit worse for wear as well.
A Reddit thread published on Tuesday quickly became the hub of complaints, gathering hundreds of comments from frustrated players sharing before-and-after screenshots and commiserating over the overhaul. The OP’s comparison image shows softer, stylized faces replaced by characters with heavily shadowed eyes, harsher wrinkles, and darker, blotchy skin. Honestly, it’s a bit uncanny and doesn’t seem to be what Full Circle foresaw when planning on updating Skate‘s visuals.
Across the thread, players describe an inconsistent, sometimes severe shift in appearance depending on complexion and gender. The issues seem to disproportionately affect female avatars as well, with one user writing, “Girl characters look like they have really bad hangovers,” while another harshly joked that their skater “became addicted to meth in a matter of an hour.” It seems that during development, Full Circle eliminated paler tones when it came to character creation.
Not all feedback is negative. A handful of users said their characters look “more realistic,” and some who already had darker complexions reported smaller differences. But even supportive comments generally acknowledge that the new models still have mismatched or outdated hair textures, harsher shading around the nose and eyes, and a style that clashes with the rest of the game.
The debate speaks to a broader tension in Skate‘s art direction. Some players previously criticized the game’s original “cartoonish” look, while others felt the series’ goofy, physics-driven identity didn’t need realism at all. The Season 2 update seems to satisfy neither camp. In my review of Skate, I noted that the Fortnite-like visuals quickly faded into the background after a short time. And because the game is overtly over-the-top and goofy, it’s really not a big deal. That said, I have no earthly idea what the devs were thinking with this new look.
Will the complaints be enough to force yet another change? I’m not sure, but it’s certainly funny to read!
