Activision confirmed Tuesday that it will release a remake of the skateboarding video games Tony Hawk 3 and Tony Hawk 4 in a single download on July 11. This will be the first year skateboarding will have console titles from two major publishers in more than a decade.
Electronic Arts, an Activision competitor, said it would give gamers early access to its revived Skate series in 2025 with a full release to follow, likely near the end of the year. It will be EA’s first skateboarding video game launch since Skate 3 in 2010.
EA dipped into the nostalgia bucket last summer to great success by returning to college football after legal challenges forced an 11-year break. EA College Football 25 netted more U.S. sales than any sports game in history.
Like EA’s Skate, Activision’s Tony Hawk series, once a sports video game mainstay, had tapered off as the company and its subsidiary studios focused on producing non-sports games.
Activision released at least one Tony Hawk game every year from 1999 through 2007; the original Tony Hawk 3 came out in 2001 and Tony Hawk 4 in 2002. Since 2018, however, Activision’s only skateboarding release has been a 2020 remake of Tony Hawk 1 + 2, which sold more than 1 million copies in about 10 days.
According to an Activision announcement and trailer Tuesday, a handful of new skateboarders will feature in Tony Hawk 3 + 4. American skaters Jamie Foy and Zion Wright are among the confirmed newcomers, while members of the original cast, including Tony Hawk, will still appear.
Direct competition in the sports space for rivals EA and Activision is less common than it once was. Additionally, EA no longer releases annual NBA or MLB games for consoles, which were once hotly contested across the sector, instead focusing on sports where it has a leg up in licensing and market share.
EA and Activision will continue to go head-to-head in combat games before the end of next year, with EA expected to launch Battlefield and Activision launching another Call of Duty.
Meanwhile, mutual competitor Take-Two has announced its much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto series sequel will come out this fall, buoying financial expectations for the whole industry.
Electronic Arts stock is down about 10% this year after its top global title, EA Sports FC, fell short of sales expectations in 2024. Activision was acquired by Microsoft in a deal completed in 2023.
(This story has been corrected in the seventh paragraph to remove an erroneous reference to Activision publishing basketball games.)