It’s been a while since we last played a Tony Hawk game (and even longer since we last got a legitimately good one), but it’s looking more and more each day that the franchise might be in line to get a revival pretty soon, thanks to more than a few rumblings over the last couple of weeks.

And more evidenced has surfaced yet again. Professional skateboarder Jason Dill seems to have spilled the beans on the game, stating in an interview that a new Tony Hawk game is out this year, and that he was involved in it as well (via @Nibellion on Twitter). The supposed 2020 launch date also lines up with what other recent leaks have said.

On top of a leak in March, the supposed new Tony Hawk title was mentioned once again by a band that supposedly licensed songs for the game around the same time.

Of course, until Activision officially announce something themselves, it’s best to proceed with caution, but given all the recent leaks that keep piling on top of each other, it seems likely that that announcement might not be far away. Either way, stay tuned, and we’ll keep you updated should we learn anything more.

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/1257607866170650624

For many, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is a nice memory. Originally releasing in the PlayStation/Nintendo 64 era, the franchise went on to have multiple entries with several reinventions. Eventually, they flooded the market with too many titles until its demise. Now, though, it’s possible Pro Skater is making a comeback.

The band The Death Set posted via their official Facebook they had just licensed 5 songs for a new Tony Hawk for this year. They have since deleted it, but the internet never forgets, as you know, and you can see the screen capture of the original post below. The band has had songs in the series before.

Of course, there’s no indication of what kind of game we’ll even see, whether this will be a mobile title or something more substantial. It’s not even clear who owns the rights to the franchise as the remaster of the first time was de-listed in 2017 (Activision was the license holder at that time). The last original entry was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, which was infamous for its technical issues that needed patches the literal size of the full game. Activision also said some time back that they’ll be releasing more remasters and reimagined titles this year, so this might be falling in line with that.

We’ll just have to wait and see what type of game we’ll end up with this time around.

We already know that Tony Hawk is due to make his return to video games this year- both he and Activision confirmed that the Tony Hawk franchise would return from its hiatus in 2015. And now, it appears, the official announcement may be close, and… someone may have leaked the announcement before it ever happened.

To be specific, that someone would be a caterer at the event, who uploaded a picture of himself standing in the props where the announcement is being made, with a screen behind him saying, in no uncertain terms, ‘Tony Hawk 5.’

So… yeah, there’s that.

This, of course, implies that there is some kind of Tony Hawk even coming up, and soon, because why would they be preparing the venue for its announcement unless said announcement was due very soon? However, it also means that the surprise announcement is now sort of ruined.

People just don’t know how to act sensible, do they?

During Sony’s CES keynote address last night, we got a pleasant surprise- a brand new Tony Hawk video game will be coming this year. This is great news because back in the day, Tony Hawk games used to be among the best video games available on the market, before Activision predictably ran them into the ground, with their last efforts a few years ago trying to tie the games in with plastic peripherals.

The game was announced at Sony’s conference, so right now, all that we know is that it will be coming to the PS4 for sure, though it’s not a stretch to assume that it will also come to PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and maybe even Wii U- it’s a relatively more casual focused title that has historically done best thanks to its multiplatform nature.

We also don’t quite know the name yet. We actually don’t know anything apart from the fact that it exists, but as and when we learn more, we will let you know.

Insomniac’s open world shooter Sunset Overdrive may have been compared to Sucker Punch’s inFamous but the developer believes it’s more in line with Tony Hawk with regards to the movement system and how you interact with the environment.

In a new interview, creative Director Marcus Smith stated that, “This is a game where you actually interact with the environment all the time. A lot more even than games like Infamous, where you interact with the environment by climbing the buildings, but most of the time you’re in the area doing stuff.

“This is a lot more like Tony Hawk, where the entire world had to be built with how the gameplay mechanics worked. These parts are so tied together that we couldn’t box them up and develop them independently.”

Director of Production Bryan Intihar added that, “When the game really crystallized for me, I think, is when we started putting traversal in the game. It wasn’t just about walking around the world and killing a bunch of enemies, but killing them in a really stylish fashion: grinding, jumping around, looking cool while you’re doing it.”

Sunset Overdrive is in development for the Xbox One and is rumoured to be releasing later this year.

Infinity Ward and Neversoft are both responsible for some of the most iconic, generation defining experiences of all time- the latter worked on the Tony Hawk series, and made it the absolute sensation that it was back in the PlayStation/Dreamcast/PlayStation 2 days. The former brought us Call of Duty, and made it into the absolute world conquering behemoth that the franchise is today.

The two studios have already shared a close relationship, having worked together on last year’s Call of Duty: Ghosts, but now they will be even closer- Giant Bomb reports that the two studios will be merged within Activision into one ‘super-studio.’

“As you know, Neversoft and Infinity Ward teamed up for the development of Call of Duty: Ghosts,” wrote Activision CEO of publishing Eric Hirshberg about the merger. “And through that process, it became clear that the two studios have very complementary skill sets. Between these two excellent studios, it seemed like a single ‘super-studio’ could emerge.”

The new studio will be called Infinity Ward- the Neversoft name is being retired.

“The impact of their 20-year run of hard work and success cannot be overstated,” said Hirshberg. “As already mentioned, we are merging these two very talented teams and obviously had to choose a name for the combined studio. Since the Infinity Ward brand is indelibly tied to the Call of Duty franchise, it is the sensible choice. While it will be strange to not see the Neversoft logo on future games, the important things–which are the Neversoft team’s talent, creativity, professionalism and commitment to creative excellence–all remain unchanged as part of this new chapter.”

This now makes a grand total of three studios within Activision working on Call of Duty- Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer, who are working on the upcoming (and rather excellent looking) Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Theoretically, this gives each studio more time to work on a Call of Duty game, while still maintaining an annual schedule, and hopefully, the quality of the games as well.

It’s been known for some time that Activision is working on a new Tony Hawk game, and now the former professional skater has confirmed that a new game in the franchise is indeed being worked on and that it will be out exclusively for mobile devices.

“We’re working on a mobile game now,” Tony Hawk told Bloomberg. “We’re working on a game for mobile devices this year.

“We’ve never gone exclusively in that direction yet so I’m excited because, with the amount of time people are spending on their phones and their tablets playing games, we’ve never had our own game in that space so I’m excited to provide one finally.”

Considering that this will be the last ever Tony Hawk game, it seems strange that Activision has chosen to go in this direction, but it’s still an interesting decision.

Stay tuned and we’ll keep you updated as more info comes our way.

“There, I said it. Actually, I named it. Somewhere a PR team is reeling.”

The tweet has been deleted since Destructoid wrote the original story on Tony Hawk’s tweet.

If the message was deleted by Tony Hawk himself, this confirms that the “Shred” title may in fact be real.

Activision today confirmed their plan to release various sequels in 2010 including Tony Hawk Ride and DJ hero follow-ups.

“In calendar year 2010, we expect our net earnings and operating margin growth will be driven by our product slate that includes Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft II and the World of Warcraft expansion pack, Cataclysm,” Kotick further added, “as well as a diversified lineup based on Activision Publishing’s best-selling franchises including Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk, together with other well-known titles such as True Crime, Spider-Man and Bakugan.”

Also it was mentioned that the new Call of Duty game isn’t expected to do better than Modern Warfare 2 but will be approached in a bullish manner. Further the release of DJ Hero 2 and new Guitar Hero game was mentioned.