Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater remake reflects the changing culture of skateboarding

Skateboarding has come a long way since the boys’ club atmosphere of the 1990s and early 2000s

WhenWhen Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was released in 1999, the skateboarding world was far, far separated from the skateboarding world of today. Vicarious Visions’ brand new remake of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 understands this on a level that goes beyond new visuals and refined-but-familiar gameplay mechanics. In a way, the remake feels like slipping on a rerelease of a classic shoe. It feels and looks similar to what once was, but you can’t help but notice and be compelled by the subtle changes.

Skateboarding culture throughout the 1990s and early 2000s was more abrasive, to say the least. The differences are clear if you look back on the time period’s skate videos, created by skateboard shoe companies to showcase pro skaters’ tricks and hi-jinks. Those old videos made it look like pro skaters’ lives were as much about getting tricks as they were about getting high, branding one another while in a drunken stupor, and setting their farts on fire. Hard falls and gnarly bails were emphasized, such as in the incredibly hard-to-watch bail segment in Toy Machine’s seminal “Welcome to Hell” video, including images ranging from bruised testicles and heads bouncing off of concrete to limbs bent and broken in graphic detail. It is no surprise that the likes of Jackass and Viva La Bam were born out of the skate scene of the mid-to-late 1990s.

Yet now, in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, there is no more blood. When players bail, there is a visual rewind-pixelation effect. This small change speaks to how, as a culture, skateboarding no longer romanticizes gnarly falls, instead focusing more on the tricks. Falling and messing up is part of the journey, and it only makes the battle to land a trick all the more rewarding. But skateboarding has been around long enough that, now, there are famous older skaters who are open and honest about what skateboarding has done to their bodies. Many skaters have described surgery after surgery and physical therapies in order to just continue skateboarding.

Source: Polygon