Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 Demo impressions

I grew up on the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games, so I absolutely loved the remake of 1 and 2 that released back in 2020. However, those weren’t the titles I played religiously as a kid. I spent much more time on 4 and Underground. While the latter isn’t included in this new remake, 3 and 4 are, so I’m very excited to bathe in nostalgia and faceplant after a lengthy combo. Luckily, I had the chance to play a small portion of the game early with the Foundry demo for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4. While I’m not entirely sold on forcing THPS 4’s mission structure into the 2 minute session style of 1-3, it all feels incredibly good to play.

If you played 1 + 2, you’ll feel right at home in 3 + 4 as it controls exactly the same. You move forward automatically, can press then release the X button to ollie, perform flips and grabs with Square and Circle, and grind or balance on lips/rails with Triangle. The full game will have objectives to complete in each level, but in the demo it’s pure score attack, chaining tricks together for a bigger multiplier. To actually get all those sweet points, however, you need to land your combo safely. It’s all about taking risks to see how long you can keep the chain going, and cashing out just before you hit your limits. It’s a ton of fun, but none of that would matter in a game with uninteresting levels.

The demo features two stages: the Foundry from 3, and the College from 4. The Foundry is a fairly small area, but with tons of potential lines for tricks. You could start with a grind past the exploding machinery, manual onto the ramp, then use your momentum to jump over the pool of molten lava to land on the other ramp. It may not be big, but it's very dense; perfect for two minute sessions.

The College is a bit of a different story. THPS 4 moved away from two minute sessions, instead having various missions in each level that have their own time limits to complete once accepted. To facilitate this, the levels were a lot bigger, with more nooks and crannies to find and utilize for each mission. There are no missions in this demo, and from what I know the full game will go back to the two minute session structure. This leaves my experience with College in a weird place. It’s big enough that I can’t really explore the full stage and get a good score in one session, causing me to stick around one or two specific locations because time spent moving between areas for tricks is just time wasted. It’s still fun, and the full game will let you adjust session time to be longer, but I can already feel the clashing design here.

Even so, I keep finding myself coming back for more. Luckily, the demo features three playable skaters: Tony Hawk, Rayssa Leal, and Doom Gu- I mean the Slayer. In an incredibly Activision move, you have to pre-order the digital deluxe edition to play as the Slayer. In a demo, you can only play as him if you’ve already pre-ordered the game, and trying to select him without the digital deluxe demo will instead advertise the digital deluxe edition to you. Needless to say, this is not a good look, and feels very greedy.

Of the skaters I could play, I found myself gravitating towards Rayssa Leal more than the titular Birdman. She’s more of a street skater stat-wise and that’s always been my preference in these games. It’s also nice to see more women included as the games have mostly been male- dominated in the past.

Even with my issues in mind, I’m incredibly excited for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4. It simply feels good to play, despite some conflicting design decisions. It’s the classic, addicting gameplay that keeps me coming back, and it’s all here and looking better than ever.

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