Skate 4 is an E3 2017 no-show, and people are pissed

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"Do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands." So said Eomer in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, but he may as well have been talking to fans of EA's Skate series going into E3 2017. The rumor mill has a tendency to let things spin out of control like a flubbed 360 flip, and wishes that we might finally see a Skate 4 have been dashed now that the EA Play press conference has come and gone.

All those hopes and dreams for Skate 4 can be traced back to a (what we now know to be ill-advised) tweet made earlier this year by Daniel Lingen, a senior manager for community engagement at EA. Earlier this year, he tweeted out a simple, cryptic message that could only be interpreted as a sign of the Skate series continuing with a new sequel. EA CEO Andrew Wilson later shut down the idea by stating that EA isn't currently working on a new Skate, but the rumor was already out in the world and ingrained in the hearts of the hopeful.

Even if you've never played Skate, you're probably familiar with how these open-world skateboarding games have generated some of the most amazing, side-splitting glitches in all of gaming history. And when you're not laughing to the point of tears at these skater's bodies defying all laws of physics and human anatomy, the Skate games offer a solid evolution of classic Tony Hawk's Pro Skater gameplay, where you bust out tricks by flicking the right thumbstick instead of tapping buttons, in an open world that lets you take on missions (or even build new structures to create complex trick lines) as you see fit. The hope was that those unannounced titles scheduled for the EA Play presser would include Skate 4; turns out, they were Anthem and A Way Out instead.

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Plenty of people took to Twitter to express their frustration with EA seemingly ignoring this franchise with diehard fans:

AAA skateboarding games have been MIA since the abysmal Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5, and while OlliOlli 2 is an excellent indie alternative, it seems nothing can fill the Skate 4-shaped hole in fans' hearts. Some of whom have some rather... unrealistic ideas about the powers of Skate 4.

After Skate 4 was nowhere to be found as the press conference wrapped up, those desperate for something - anything - to believe in drowned their sorrows in what they wished were Skate 4 screens. In case you're wondering, those are Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and Razor Freestyle Scooter, though with just how obsessed EA is with Star Wars Battlefront 2, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Darth Maul could have a place in Skate 4. 

And then... EUREKA! A brilliant realization: get John Boyega to tweet his opinion to EA! If it worked for getting a single-player story campaign into Battlefront 2, who's to say Boyega couldn't will Skate 4 into existence?!

To find out which games are actually at E3 2017, check out our coverage of the E3 2017 games and E3 2017 trailers from the show.  

Lucas Sullivan
Lucas Sullivan

Lucas Sullivan is the former US Managing Editor of GamesRadar+. Lucas spent seven years working for GR, starting as an Associate Editor in 2012 before climbing the ranks. He left us in 2019 to pursue a career path on the other side of the fence, joining 2K Games as a Global Content Manager. Lucas doesn't get to write about games like Borderlands and Mafia anymore, but he does get to help make and market them.