Skate launch attracts huge crowd, but the reviews didn’t stick the landing

EA’s new live-service, free-to-play Skate has launched to massive success, at least in some respects. Garnering a huge player count in its first 24 hours, it’s among the biggest releases this year, but its reviews indicate a lot of underlying issues that could adversely affect its longevity.

According to SteamDB, Skate has launched to over 80,000 peak concurrent players, with around 75,000 in the game as of this article. This is a huge following for a skating game, and places the title high on the Steam top-played list and among the biggest launches of 2025. However, despite performing well and attracting a massive crowd, its reviews are majority negative, with only 48 percent of players recommending the game, earning it a “Mixed Reviews” tag on Valve’s store.

Player feedback touches on a lot of aspects of the game, from its graphics and art style, which is being deemed “cartoonish” by some (and which I also didn’t really like while previewing the game), to performance issues regarding the replay editor, to clunky levels that are impossible to improve manually, as opposed to maps in Skate 3.

A lot of features present in some of the previous games are also not in there, while some reviewers are saying that Skate “is not” the successor to the long-standing series, which has garnered quite a cult following over the years.

Overall, it appears that a lot of those issues I indicated in my preview, and which EA said would be ironed out throughout the game’s live-service lifespan, remain in the full release. The title is in early access, though, so a lot of the game is subject to change and improvement.

Whether those will come in time to save the game from huge initial backlash is anyone’s guess, so here’s hoping EA hears what players are saying and works to make Skate into the best game possible.

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