The Birdman returns after 13 years.
Following a tease at the 2015 International CES in January, Activison confirms that the Tony Hawk skateboarding game franchise will return, coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 later this year. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 adds online multiplayer functionality to the series’ established combo-based play. Reviving this popular, award-winning franchise should support the publisher’s strong lineup for 2015, which includes Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III and the release of Blizzard’s multiplayer online battle arena, Heroes of the Storm.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 adds drop-in online multiplayer so that you can join friends worldwide in connected skate sessions for the first time in the series’ history. Mission-based play and head-to-head competitive matches should also be available in online play, as should the capability to build and share skateparks.
Joint developers Robomodo (developers of the not-so-great Tony Hawk: Ride skateboard peripheral game) and Disruptive Games added new levels, skills, and stages to the classic trick-based play. It’s injecting power-ups and projectiles into the series to mix up the action for even experienced skaters.
“Skateboarding has always been about the freedom of ripping with your friends, and creating a game that captures that feeling has been a vision of mine since the Pro Skater series began over 15 years ago,” said Tony Hawk in a statement. “I’m beyond excited to see that dream finally come true with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, which takes the old-school attitude of the original games online in a big way.”
Activision says that it plans to share specific release dates for the various versions in the coming weeks.