While news about more layoffs is definitely unwelcome, Full Circle is sparing no effort to give credit to the outgoing members of its team, acknowledging their contributions to the game, while also tipping its hat to its community of dedicated players.

“The teammates affected are talented colleagues and friends who helped build the foundation of Skate. Their creativity and dedication are deeply ingrained in what players experience today. This decision is not a reflection of their impact, and we’re committed to supporting them through this transition…To our departing teammates: thank you. Skate exists because of your hard work and dedication to the craft.”

Development on Skate will continue, and the new team structure is focusing on improved responsiveness to feedback, a facet of Skate’s early access period that has been crucial to building its community of players.

“Our work on Skate continues. We look forward to working with you as we move faster, listen more closely, and deliver consistently for all of you. Our commitment to Skate, and to the millions of players who believe in it, remains strong.”

Time will tell if Skate manages to be the game its community of developers and players want it to be, but until then, it has a lot of interesting new stuff coming to it in the next few months. Let’s hope that the new team can continue making it the community-based experience it was always meant to be.

Skate is currently available for Xbox One, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. It’s been in free-to-play early access since September 2025.

“We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: we’re building Skate with a long-term vision in mind,” wrote the studio. “This Early Access period is a huge part of that. It gives us the space to listen, learn, tweak and test – over and over – until we get things just right.”

The biggest addition to Skate with Season 3 will be the return of the Isle of Grom. While players might remember the island as being the tutorial area, its newer version will be larger, and better designed for free-form exploration. The newer parts of Grom will include massive gaps, and spillway action inspired by Skate 2 and 3. While the map will be released to all players on May 5th, skate.Pass Premium owners will be able to get to it much earlier – on March 10th. April 14th will see the map being available as part of a limited-time multi-week event before ultimately being opened up for everyone.

To access Grom from May 5th onwards, players will need to get their hands on an Isle of Grom Water Taxi day pass by spending 500 of their Rip Chips, which can be earned by just playing the game. These day passes will be valid for 24 hours from when you buy it, and can be used an unlimited number of times for that time frame before it expires. skate.Pass Premium owners, however, can skip the process and jump right into the island.

For character customization, Season 3 will also bring with it more branded items in the skate.Pass, including apparel by companies like Adidas. Players who prefer buying items à la carte will find more than 200 wardrobe items through the shop. While this catalog might see changes every now and then, the core idea behind it is to keep it growing over time.

It is worth noting that EA and Full Circle had previously noted that new additions to Skate’s map would be available to all players through game updates. Since then, the statement has been changed, as spotted by a ResetEra user, to remove mentions of new areas being available to everyone.

More details on content coming to Skate with Season 3 will be revealed in the coming days.

Skate was released across PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox series X/S in September, and while initial player numbers were quite impressive, the free-to-play game has seen quite a drop-off in concurrent player counts on Steam. It garnered “Mixed” reviews on launch, and player opinion doesn’t seem to have changed much since then. At the time of publishing, the title saw a 24-hour peak of 2,646 concurrent players (via SteamDB), with 1,466 playing right now. For comparison’s sake, it saw an all-time peak of 134,901 players five months ago.

Since its release, Full Circle and publisher EA also released a cosmetics set based on Dead Space protagonist Isaac Clarke to the in-game store. It was priced at just over $40, and saw quite a bit of criticism due to looking quite shoddy.

While there might be dips in the company’s revenue, it has also noted that EA Sports Madden NFL 26 and EA Sports FC 26 both saw growth in sales, with the latter seeing “mid-single-digits” year-on-year growth when compared with EA Sports FC 25. Apex Legends has also seemingly grown in bookings, with the growth described by the company as being in the double digits. Along with this, EA also celebrated the launches of Skate and Battlefield 6.

“Across our broad portfolio — from EA Sports to Battlefield, The Sims, and skate. — our teams continue to create high-quality experiences that connect and inspire players around the world,” said EA CEO Andrew Wilson in the earnings report. “The creativity, passion, and innovation of our teams are at the heart of everything we do.”

Interestingly, EA has also noted that it will no longer be hosting its usual earnings calls that typically involve the company’s leadership and analysts. This decision was likely made as the company makes its preparations to go private after being bought by an investor consortium that consists of Saudi Arabia’s PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. As the company had announced last month, this deal involves EA’s stockholders being paid a premium of 25 percent over the company’s share price as of September 25, 2025.

The deal, which is expected to be completed by Q1 FY2027, will turn EA into a completely privately-owned company. As part of the deal, PIF, which previously had a 9.9 percent stake in EA, will end up with 100 percent of the company’s ownership.

“Our creative and passionate teams at EA have delivered extraordinary experiences for hundreds of millions of fans, built some of the world’s most iconic IP, and created significant value for our business. This moment is a powerful recognition of their remarkable work,” said EA CEO and chairman Andrew Wilson in a statement.

While the long-term effects of this acquisition going through are yet to be seen, reports have already emerged of EA’s leadership having asked its employees to use AI-based tools for just about all aspects of their work. This ranges from generating code while programming, to generating concept art, and even middle-managers using LLM tools for advice on discussing sensitive subjects with workers under them.

Analysts have predicted that the acquisition, since it was a leveraged buyout of EA that has put the company into considerable debt, will end up with “an even stronger focus on evergreen IPs, blockbuster (fewer but potentially bigger games) and live services – at the expense of riskier projects, new ideas and innovation.” This means that EA will double down on its annual sports titles and other major franchises.

Skate players can spend 3,350 San Van Bucks – valued at just over $40 – to buy an Isaac Clarke-themed set of cosmetics. This set includes an outfit that will allow players to look like they are wearing the armour set used by Dead Space protagonist Isaac Clarke. Unfortunately, however, the quality of the cosmetic set is quite shoddy, with it essentially looking like a store-bought costume that one might wear for Halloween.

Along with the armour set itself, the Isaac Clarke bundle also comes with cosmetic options for the skateboard, including a necromorph-themed deck, skateboard wheels with Marker-related symbols on them, and a set of stickers with references to different things from throughout the Dead Space games. The set is capped off with a special stomping emote, mimicking Clarke’s own stomps from Dead Space for when he’s trying to finish off an enemy.

This update to Skate’s in-game store coincides with the start of the skateboarding title’s first season. The update, which was detailed earlier this month, brings with it a host of new content to the game, including 40 new challenges and more than 200 new cosmetic items for players to unlock. Along with this, Skate has also gotten a brand new area to explore and skate through. The season also brought with it the first two seasonal events to Skate – Skate-o-Ween and 7-Ply Maple Harvest – as well as the Skate Pass.

EA and Full Circle have also outlined future planned updates for Skate, which extend into the next two seasons. Season 2, slated to start in December, will bring with it a brand new co-op game mode, two new seasonal events, new tricks that players can pull off, along with improvements to the replay editor and in-game party voice chat. Season 3, on the other hand, will likely start in February, and will bring with it player-created parks, new game modes, more things to collect in the open world, and new skateboarding tricks.

While Skate had spent quite a bit of time in playtesting, the title was finally released as an Early Access game on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S back in September. On launch day, the PC version of Skate through Steam was off to a rough start, managing to get only 47 percent positive reviews, giving it a mixed rating. This came despite the title getting more than 81,000 concurrent players on launch date.

Players have written extensively about their problems with Skate, which range from the lack of classic franchise features like death races, to poor communication options, and repetitive mission design.

Season 1 marks the debut of two seasonal events – Skate-o-Ween and 7-Ply Maple Harvest – and the Skate Pass. The latter follows the same format as Helldivers 2’s Premium Warbonds, with Tix used to unlock rewards. You’ll need to purchase the Premium Pass for its corresponding items, but there are free cosmetics, including new badges, emotes, outfits, and more.

While there are over 80 total rewards, Season 1 is on the shorter side, with Season 2 kicking off in December. From then on, subsequent seasons will be longer and offer 100 items. Any SVB earned in the current pass can be used to purchase the next one.

Skate is in early access for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5. Stay tuned for more details on Season 1 and check out the roadmap here.

Despite peaking at 81,340 concurrent players on Steam, Skate has gotten off to a rough start with server queues occurring at launch. It holds a “Mixed” rating with only 47 percent of the currently 6,734 user reviews giving it the thumbs-up. Complaints range from the replay editor not functioning and repetitive mission design to poor communication options and the lack of classic features such as death races and S.KA.T.E.

Launch is only the start, though, with developer Full Circle Studios outlining an extensive roadmap for new features and events. Season 1 begins on October 25th and adds new seasonal events, challenges, areas, and the Skate Pass. Other upcoming content includes improvements to the replay editor, player-created parks, new game modes, party voice chat, and more.

Season 1 kicks off on October 25th and adds two seasonal events, the Skate Pass and some quality-of-life improvements for the HUD and PC versions. Season 2 arrives in December and introduces a new co-op mode, Impossibles and Improved Handplants, two seasonal events, party voice chat, and improvements to the Replay Editor.

Season 3 (and beyond) will see the addition of player-created parks, new modes, leaderboards, more character slots for cosmetics like tattoos, and new tricks like Darksliders and Expanded Footplants. At launch, four neighbourhoods are available, full of challenges for players to tackle, with servers accommodating up to 150 players each.

Skate launches on September 16th for PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC with cross-progression and cross-play supported.

While Skate will be free to play, the question, as always, is how much early access offers and how long it will last. There’s no “fixed timeline” for the latter, but Full Circle expects a “full release” approximately a year after. For now, players can expect all the fundamentals of the franchise (with improvements to the Flick-It system) and “tons of content” in the open-world city of San Vansterdam.

Servers will accommodate up to 150 players with cross-play and cross-progression supported. Skateboarding spots abound, but you can also partake in seasonal events, challenges, and missions with customization options for characters and decks. Regarding the future, players can expect new features, live events, and improvements based on feedback.

Stay tuned for more details and a potential roadmap once early access goes live.

However, perhaps the most significant is a big update coming next week, one that the development team says fans have been waiting for. A release date for early access, previously confirmed for Summer 2025? An open beta test? Time will tell, so stay tuned.

Skate is in development for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and PC. Unlike previous titles, it’s a free-to-play game with microtransactions, allowing multiple players to skateboard through its massive environments. Cross-platform multiplayer and cross-progression are supported, and while there are microtransactions, they’re meant to be cosmetic-only.

Sadly, there’s no offline mode as the experience is designed from the ground up for online play.

On the Steam page for Skate, it stated that it isn’t quite sure how long the game will spend in Early Access. However, it does estimate that a “full” release of the title should happen around a year after the early access version is released.

“We don’t have a fixed timeline to officially exit Early Access, as the game will evolve, grow, and improve based on player feedback. However, we expect to move towards a ‘full’ release approximately a year out from the start of Early Access, but we don’t know for certain at this time,” explained the studio.

The early access release of Skate will launch with what the studio refers to as the “essentials” of the game. This includes a new, refined version of the Flick-It trick system that involves players making use of the analogue sticks on a controller to pull off skateboarding tricks, as well as content that players can partake in alongside other players in San Vansterdam.

At launch, the title will have a “large-scale, open-world city” with support for more than 150 players in a single server. The game will also feature cross-platform multiplayer as well as the ability to transfer progression between platforms. As for in-game activities, the title will include missions, skill-building challenges, and live seasonal events, all of which will reward players with various cosmetic items that can then be used to customise their skateboarder as well as their skateboards.

Full Circle has also revealed that the newest iteration of the Skate Insider playtest will involve quite a few features from the Early Access launch, including improved visuals, missions, challenges, and overhauled progression and rewards. The update, which will also enhance the UI and streamline the tutorial experience, is out on July 2.

“None of this would be possible without all of our playtesters telling us what you love, what you want more of, and what you’d like improved,” wrote the studio in its latest The Grind post. “The entire team is listening, and we will continue to work with you to grow, evolve, and improve skate. when we launch Early Access later this year and throughout the Early Access period.“

Skate will be coming to PC and consoles as a free-to-play game, which also means that the title will feature microtransactions where players can use real money to buy in-game cosmetic items. Full Circle had started testing the microtransactions in an update back in March, which brought with it the in-game store as well as a new in-game currency dubbed San Van Bucks.