Tony Hawk had an idea: what if he could bring skateboarding to video games?
Hawk had grown up a fan of gaming, he told USA TODAY Sports in a one-on-one interview. He grew up as they rose to prominence with games like ‘Pong,’ ‘Pac-Man’ and ‘Donkey Kong.’ His first home console was an Intellivision, originally manufactured by Mattel and released in 1979. As he got older, Hawk bought other consoles – he named the Commodore 64, Super NES and PlayStation – and continued playing video games.
So by the time the late ’90s rolled around and video games were becoming more mainstream, Hawk was ready to capitalize on the moment to make a skateboarding game. But for a while, his idea wasn’t going anywhere.
‘I had been in talks with a few different developers and console manufacturers about doing a possible game, but none of them were agreed upon. None of them were actually green lit,’ Hawk said. ‘In fact, it was it was kind of a uphill battle convincing anyone.
‘I had given up, to be honest, probably sometime in 1997.’
The birth of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
That’s around the time video game publisher Activision called Hawk, saying that they had heard the X Games gold medalist was trying to make a game. When Hawk told them that he had been unable to get anything going, Activision told him they had been working on a game and invited him to see it.
‘And so I went to Activision,’ Hawk said. ‘I saw a very early build of what became THPS (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater) and immediately, I knew this was the game. I could tell instinctively that this would be the most fun, that this would be the best one to be involved with, and with my connections and resources and experience, we could make this something truly authentic.’
So, on Sept. 29, 1999, the world got its first taste of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the first of five games in the series and what has gone on to become 21 games in the Tony Hawk’s skateboarding video game franchise.
The first game released to rave reviews from critics and players alike, winning Game Informer magazine’s 1999 Game of the Year award. The legacy of the first game and its three sequels – released in each of the next three years – lives on.
Many writers and analysts have credited THPS with pushing skateboarding into the global mainstream and introducing more young people to skateboarding. The soundtrack from the games – full of punk rock and ska punk music – is also celebrated for its influence in spreading those music genres.
Hawk is well aware of the lasting impact the games have had on its audience, and he referenced memes that he continues to see on social media platforms.
He said, ‘A lot of them always use our game to explain some of the best times in their lives. And that’s something I don’t take for granted. I’m very proud of it, and when I get recognized in public, (the THPS games are) usually the first thing people want to talk about.’
Remastering a classic
Flash forward to 2019, 20 years after the release of the original ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.’ Hawk wanted to put on a 20th anniversary concert to raise money for his foundation, The Skatepark Project, then known as the Tony Hawk Foundation.
Hawk reached out to Activision for permission to use the THPS IP for the event. Bobby Kotick, then-CEO of the publisher, both consented to the use of the IP and had Activision sponsor the fundraiser.
That, Hawk says, was the catalyst for the idea to remake the THPS series, upgrading the visuals and technology behind the games to make them suitable for new hardware and potentially bring in a new audience.
Kotick told Hawk at the time that he had an idea of which video game development studios would be up to the task of remaking the, at this point, classic games and doing right by their fans. Within a year, Kotick Activision had indeed found the studio – Vicarious Visions, now known as Blizzard Albany – and greenlit the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 remake game.
Hawk said when he played the remade versions of the first two iterations of the video game series named after him, he felt similarly to how he did the first time he played the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
‘I think (I had) even a deeper appreciation for it because it it was utilizing the newest technology and so it looked much more real, it felt much more real,’ Hawk said.
On Sept. 4, 2020, nearly 20 years to the day of the release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 debuted. It was the first new Tony Hawk’s skateboarding game for consoles since 2015’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5.
The game sold one million copies in the first two weeks after release. Its reviews were similarly positive to the original iterations of the series, receiving a 90 score (out of 100) for the PlayStation 5 version on review aggregator site Metacritic.
Remaking more sequels
Less than five years later – and earlier this month – Activision released the follow-up fans have been waiting for: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4. Like its predecessor, the game combines remakes of two games in the original, four-game THPS series – this time, the latter two games – and received generally favorable reviews from critics, per Metacritic.
The newest game includes new music, new levels and new skaters in addition to bringing back old soundtrack hits, original levels in their upgraded format and many of the original skaters as well.
Hawk said he had a good amount of say in the songs that were in the updated soundtrack, an important thing to get right given how much of a staple music was in the original games. He said almost every song suggestion he made was included in the new soundtrack.
‘Including my stepson’s band T.C.M.F. with the song ‘Result,” Hawk said. ‘It totally fits. And if you didn’t know I was related to him, you would think, ‘Oh yeah, that song belongs there.”
If he had to pick favorites from the new soundtrack, Hawks says they’d be ‘Damaged Goods’ by Gang of Four and ‘Gift Horse’ by Idles.
For the new levels, Hawk said he didn’t have as much of a say, but he has a feeling he knows where at least one of the ideas came from.
One of the new levels, ‘Water Park,’ draws inspiration from a 2019 video from Thrasher Magazine showing Hawk and other skaters doing tricks around a drained water park.
‘A few years ago, I did skate a water park and that was well documented, and then suddenly that was an idea for the game,’ Hawk said. ‘I’m not saying that that’s exactly the chronology, but I think it had a lot to do with it.’
Another level addition, ‘Pinball,’ allows the player to skate through a giant pinball machine that a larger-than-life-sized version of Hawk is playing.
When it came to the skaters, Hawk loved being able to include many of the same original skaters from the original games.
Said Hawk: ‘The idea that we had all the same cast of characters – in that 1 + 2 remaster and now in 3 + 4 – and they all still skate! You know what I mean? Like that’s an amazing legacy, and we can make them age appropriate.
‘Someone asked me recently like, ‘Is your character your age?’ I’m like, ‘He is, because I’m still skating!”
There are also plenty of new additions to the roster of skaters in the new game, including two-time street gold medalist Yuto Horigome, two-time street medalist Rayssa Leal and even a few fictional characters: Michelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Doom Slayer from the Doom video game series are both playable characters.
Hawk says he’ll usually play as himself in the games but occasionally branches out to use other skaters to explore their unique tricks. One other skater, in particular, often gets some extra play above the others.
‘I would say if I’m not playing my character, then I’m playing my son Riley,’ he said.
Tony Hawk on skateboarding at the Olympics
Outside of helping in the development of remaking the video games he lent his name to, Hawk has been something of a global ambassador to the sport of skateboarding. He was an early part of the push to get it included in the Olympics in the first place.
‘I was advocating for it from the get-go when I knew that it was even in the realm of possibility and in conversations with the IOC (International Olympic Committee),’ he said. ‘I attended plenty of meetings. I actually flew to Lausanne (the IOC’s home in Switzerland) at one point. I went to the youth games. I was trying everything I could to raise the profile and to show that it would be a great addition.
‘And then when it finally did get added as as a sport and as a medal category, that’s when I backed out honestly. Once I knew it was in, I didn’t want to be part of the machine. I just wanted to help it guide it there in the in the early days.’
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) first voted to include skateboarding in the Summer Olympic Games in the 2020 iteration in Tokyo. Skateboarding was also an event in the 2024 Paris Games and is set to take place once again in 2028 in Los Angeles.
In each of the first two editions of Olympic skateboarding, Hawk was there each time not only as a witness, but as a participant.
‘It’s the coolest. It’s like the best of all worlds, because I get to go see it, I get to participate,’ he said. ‘Like I got to ride the course both in Tokyo and Paris before the skaters.
‘I get to to watch from the sidelines and I don’t have to judge. It’s been amazing to see and to see the the amount of interest and growth and hype that it has received.’
Hawk noted that a large part of that interest and growth has been most noticeable with young women and girl skaters in recent years. He told an anecdote about his own vertical ramp contest – Tony Hawk’s Vert Alert – struggling to get girls to sign up to fill up their side of a bracket just for the first iteration of the event four years ago.
‘It was kind of like, ‘Any girl that even could skate ramps at all, you’re in,” Hawk said. ‘And now the field is huge and we have to hold qualifying way beforehand.
‘And I mean just in the case of like someone like Arisa Trew, she she did a 900 (Tony Hawk’s signature trick consisting of two full, 360-degree rotations with an additional 180) last year. It’s amazing. It’s amazing that how just in that five years, how exponentially it’s grown.’
In addition to helping bridge the gender divide in skating, Hawk said the Olympics have also been a massive part in bringing the sport to a more global audience. He pointed to countries like China and Uganda, places where skating was not as popular or didn’t even really exist in decades past.
‘There was never skating in China before the Olympics, and now they have training facilities and actual skaters and places where kids can go and learn,’ Hawk said. ‘And that’s huge.’
Uganda now has a ‘thriving skating scene’ as well, says Hawk. And even though the country didn’t participate in the skating event for the Olympics, there’s still more attention on skateboarding there because of the recent iterations of Summer Games.
If there’s one thing Hawk would change about the Olympic skateboarding events, it’s that he wishes they included a vert event: competitions with halfpipes and large, vertical ramps. Hawk specialized in those events during his career – a vert competition at the fifth X Games is where he pulled off the first-ever 900 in 1999.
Instead, the only two skateboarding events at the quadrennial Games are ‘street’ and ‘park’ skating, which feature small courses with obstacles for the skaters to use for various tricks.
Hawk called himself the ‘gnat in their (the IOC’s) ear’ while trying to push for a vert event in the Olympics. Though he understood the reasoning it wasn’t included in the original, 2020 Tokyo Games – a lack of vertical ramps worldwide would have made holding qualifying events a challenge – he’s still hoping – and pushing – for its inclusion in a future iteration.
Hawk said he hasn’t been contacted (yet) about helping set up any of the events for the 2028 Games, which will take place in Los Angeles, not far from Hawk’s hometown of San Diego. But he has already offered help with setting up a vert event.
‘I have offered up my ramp and my presence. If they want to put vert in in any context, here’s a free vert ramp,’ he said. ‘Put it wherever you want and I’ll be there.’