A short history of skate game modding
Twenty-six years of fans keeping their skate games alive after the publishers moved on.
The scenes, in depth
The people →- Skate 3 modding
Sixteen years of fans keeping EA Black Box's last skate game alive, from modded consoles and RPCS3 to a native PC port and maps that move between every platform.
- THUG Pro
A fan-made total conversion of Tony Hawk's Underground 2 that pulls levels from across the Neversoft era into one game, built to keep the scene online after the official servers went dark.
- PARTYMOD, ClownJob'd and OpenSpy
How the original Tony Hawk's PC ports got modern controllers, widescreen, fixes for modern Windows and online play again, years after GameSpy shut down.
- Skater XL modding
Modders built Skater XL's maps, gear and multiplayer before the studio did. Easy Day Studios then hired some of them and folded their work into the official game.
- Session modding
Custom maps showed up in Session a week after early access opened, well before any official tools. One open-source mod manager and the Illusory unlocker have carried the scene ever since.
- THPSPro
A fan mod by bAstimc that brings levels from THPS3 through Project 8 into the Unreal remakes. It started on 1+2 because a 3+4 remake seemed unlikely, then moved to 3+4 when one shipped.
Twenty-six years in six eras
- 2000–2014
The Neversoft PC era
The Tony Hawk's PC ports were moddable from day one. GameSpy kept them online until it shut down in 2014, which pushed the community toward fan-run servers.
Read more → - 2007–2013
skate. resets the genre
EA Black Box's flick-it trilogy (2007, 2009, 2010) takes over from Tony Hawk's. It's console-only, so modding it means modded consoles. The studio closes in 2013.
Read more → - 2013–2023
THUG Pro and the long tail
THUG Pro collects every Neversoft level into THUG2, and OpenSpy and PARTYMOD keep the classics running on modern PCs and online.
Read more → - 2018–2022
The sims open up
Skater XL (early access 2018) and Session put community maps at the center: mod.io, Unity Mod Manager, Session Mod Manager and the Illusory unlocker. Fan multiplayer comes before the official version.
Read more → - 2020–2025
Remakes and the revival
Unreal remakes of THPS 1+2 (2020) and 3+4 (2025) get Nexus mods and THPSPro. EA's skate. returns in 2025 as a free-to-play Frostbite game, locked down by kernel anti-cheat.
Read more → - 2026–
Skate 3 goes native
A static recompilation puts Skate 3 on PC, Android, iOS and the web. The world format gets fully documented, and maps start moving between every platform.
Read more →