Tony Hawk as soon as modded his pal’s PlayStation 1 with the intention to get suggestions on early builds of the unique Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater. That is in accordance with the Birdman himself, who informed the story throughout a panel at iicon (a brand new convention for online game business professionals) in regards to the lasting legacy of the THPS sequence.
Again in 1998, Hawk was working with Neversoft on early variations of the soon-to-be legendary skateboarding sport, which on the time was borne out of a modified model of the failed Bruce Willis-branded sport Apocalypse.
“Each week they might burn a CD for me, and I performed it on my modified PlayStation 1,” Hawk stated. “I might make feedback, after which the subsequent week I get a disc within the mail with all of the updates.”
“I used to be actually enthusiastic about it, however I used to be additionally type of remoted in my pleasure as a result of I used to be the one actual skater engaged on it, and so – I hope I don’t get in hassle for this, 20 plus years later – however I began making copies of the burns and sending them to skaters that I knew had been hardcore players.”
Hawk stated at one level he modified his pal Atiba’s PS1 – presumably referring to skater and photographer Atiba Jefferson, who later appeared in THPS 4 – to have the ability to play the burned sport discs with the intention to give him suggestions.
“He actually did have priceless suggestions, and he began letting individuals come over to play the sport. I imply, we had been going rogue,” Hawk stated.
However at one level, Hawk began listening to rumors throughout the hardcore skate group, with feedback like “have you ever guys performed ‘the sport?’” beginning to flow into.
“That is after I knew we did one thing proper, and that the skate boarders had been going to take pleasure in this,” Hawk stated. “And to me, that was the mark of success. I had no concept that it will ever transcend simply the skateboard world, however the truth that they only referred to it as ‘the sport’ gave me a way of satisfaction.”
Elsewhere within the panel, Hawk commented that, in the event that they get to make one other one, Tony Hawk’s Underground is the subsequent sport he’d wish to see remastered.
“What’s subsequent, that’s all the time the dialog. As a result of we are actually making our approach via the sequence as remasters and remakes, and to be sincere, essentially the most noise that I hear about remastering the sport, is for Underground, and has been for the previous couple of years. I don’t know who I’m pitching this to, however that’s the one, if we get to do it.”
Nevertheless, the developerment crew behind the latest THPS 3+4 remaster, Iron Galaxy, confronted one other spherical of layoffs earlier this month which follows a big spherical of layoffs from 2025.
For extra from iicon, try our writeup of Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick’s feedback in regards to the much-debated worth level of GTA 6.
Bo Moore is IGN’s Senior Supervisor of Tech. You will discover him on-line @usebomswisely.
