Last June, at Electronic Arts’ EA Play event, EA announced the development of a new game in the Skate franchise. A full decade after the release of Skate 3, the announcement was the culmination of years of hype for a fourth Skate game. This morning, we got our first update about the new Skate’s development. EA announced the creation of Full Circle, a new Vancouver-based studio. Full Circle, they revealed, will be working on the new Skate title.
Full Circle’s general manager is Daniel McCulloch. McCulloch is best known for serving as head of Microsoft’s Xbox Live service. He held that position for three years until leaving last June, just a few weeks after the Skate announcement. Full Circle will have experienced Skate developers on the team as well. Deran Chung and Cuz Parry are joining the studio, who are each longtime veterans on the Skate franchise. As for the rest of their staff, they are currently hiring. Positions of all kinds are open on their website, from developer to UI engineer to project coordinator.
The Legacy of the Skate Franchise
Skate 3 is a quality game. It earned high marks when it launched back in 2010. The game grew a sort of cult following after release, which was accelerated after popular content creators, most notably Pewdiepie, featured the game on their Youtube channels in 2014. In the six years since, developers have attempted to capture the magic of Skate’s physics-based gameplay. In 2019, crea-ture Studios Inc. released Session on Steam Early Access, which has been picked up by Nacon for publishing. Last year, Easy Day Studios released Skater XL, a physics-based skateboarding game that leans into it’s creative community for new content. In a press release, McCulloch said that “the fans wished Skate back into existence,” and he’s absolutely right. The Skate announcement comes in a world where fans of the genre, who were tired of waiting, made their own Skate 4s.
We don’t know much about Full Circle’s Skate game. Suffice to say, its got a lot of years of hype to live up to. I’m excited to see more information as it develops. For now, it’s good to know that Full Circle is starting with the pedigree necessary to pull off a new Skate title.