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Full Circle’s evolved take on Skate. is flipping brilliant
J
Jordan Oloman
This article was last updated on September 3, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Full Circle’s evolutionary pitch centered on community and accessibility—not Skate 4, just Skate. this time—and has now resulted in a free-to-play game where players are meant to link, build, and shred together. It is always online, cross-platform, and features cross-progression for good measure. The in-game playground, San Vansterdam, is a sumptuous sandbox of customizable lines and time-sensitive challenges that can handle 150 players in a single instance.
You can parkour up the side of a building and drop a ramp to level up an urban greenway’s possibility space. From there, you might spot another player in the distance and tail them to their own makeshift spot. It’s easy to get caught up in this moreish process of digital orienteering, grinding through promenades and diving off skyscrapers in chase of a memorable clip.
Before you get there, though, you’ll tumble through a Runescape-esque tutorial island, an offshore training ground that helps you pick up the Flick-It flow. And after three years of insider playtesting, there’s a satisfying level of technical finesse to chaining together manuals and flip tricks, buoyed by an animation overhaul that fluidifies your skater’s limbic reactions. Series lifers will notice the upgrades immediately, and likely gorge on the capacity for steezy sequences. But if you’re new to the format, a variant control scheme sands down some of the harsher edges so you can drop in with ease and start earning Rip (Resident Incentive Program) Chips.
In Skate.’s MMO-like open world, each district has its own Neighbourhood Rep, and the player boasts a Rip Score. By nailing San Van’s copious specialized challenges, you can grow these metrics to unlock access to more cosmetic items, and then use your earned chips to roll the dice on product boxes for new apparel and board parts. There are expected and not-so-expected sartorial choices, from comfy Vans to makeshift wings—the randomized item delivery meant it was rare to see identical-looking skaters during my time with the build.
When asked about whether we’ll see external IP costumes like Peter Griffin in Skate., the developer council acknowledged that the series has a history of secret characters, such as the very literal Meat Man, and Dead Space’s Isaac Clarke in Skate 3, but we wouldn't hold our breath for Family Guy cameos.
Regardless, the cartoony visuals and jokey back-and-forths between quest-givers quickly place this entry on the very fringes of reality. As one NPC explains during your early-game onboarding, a rogue start-up developed a technology that could make humans impervious to pain, which is why you can reasonably be tasked with crumpling your avatar into a dumpster, or sending them through the narrow slats of a commuter bridge like a flying squirrel with a death wish. Full Circle’s eye for technical detail extends to this comprehensive bailing system, which, thanks to the addition of expanded rolling and parkour controls, allows you to indulge in hilarious ragdoll scenarios that would serve up certain death otherwise.
One of the most important aspects of any skateboarding game is its soundtrack, and here is where Skate. kicks and pushes towards a more tapped-in atmosphere. As much as a soundtrack for a AAA game can, Skate.’s musical accompaniment paws in the direction of the underground, and sees guitar tone god Mk.gee sitting side by side with hardstyle troubadour 2hollis. This will evolve as the game goes through quarterly seasonal updates, folding in new tracks alongside a bevy of customisable content and things to do, which will take advantage of the potential for San Vansterdam’s map to evolve and play host to sponsored events.
Skate. feels primed for the public to explore and critique, but it’s important to note that this is still just the beginning of early access. Full Circle has plans for some features that they expect to be hotly requested, and future updates will add party voice chat, advanced replay editor tools, handplants, impossibles and darkslides, as well as extra competitive game modes to flesh out the set. The team were keen to stress that their aesthetic and technical decisions were subject to change based on the fast-approaching tide of feedback, but the studio’s convincing vision for an evolving, open-world take on Skate. remains unwavering.
Skate. launches into early access on Epic Games Store on September 16.