PS Indie Day usually isn’t hotly anticipated in the same way that events likeSummer Game FestandTokyo Game Showare, but enjoyers of the independent game space know to expect at least a couple of exciting reveals to come out of it. This time around, one such reveal is for Skate Story; it’s finally got a release window. Yes, after years of waiting with little or no news to keep them going, fans can finally expect to see a release on both PC and PlayStation 5 later this year.
Shred Through a Stylish, Surreal World of Sin in Skate Story
It’s been a very long road for Skate Story, having had its first revealall the way back in 2020.At the time, many indie fans thought they’d be seeing it and contemporary projects likeHollow Knight: Silksongwithin a year or so, but it didn’t exactly play out that way. Little snippets of news would leak out here and there, but nothing all that concrete. Thankfully, in the case of Skate Story at least, that period appears to have finally come to an end with both this announcement and the release of a new trailer.
This new trailer primarily shows off another track from the game’s soundtrack, a song titled “Overlord” by Blood Cultures. Blood Cultures is heavily involved with Skate Story’s entire soundtrack, to the point where the group even seems to be making entirely new songs just for the game. “Overlord” does not appear to be available outside this trailer at the moment, making it a Skate Story exclusive for the time-being. This bodes quite well for the game as a whole, as this implies that there is indeed an entire soundtrack’s worth of new music for Blood Cultures fans to enjoy.
This writer actually got some hands-on time with Skate Story at TGS 2024 and can say that this is just the beginning when it comes to Skate Story’s soundscape. Both Blood Cultures and Sam Eng worked very hard to create real sense of enveloping atmosphere with the sounds and music.
Also shown in the trailer are some new characters, a new area and what looks like a possible enemy encounter at the very end. Viewers also get a hint of the skater’s objective in that it has something to do with the moon. Does it want to reach the moon? Does it want to destroy it? Or is it simply that the moon is just a step towards achieving a greater goal? This is actually clarified on Skate Story’s Steam page: the mission is to swallow the moon so that the devil will let the skater out of the underworld.
You are a demon made of glass and pain, and your only way out is to skate.
Indeed, the skater is not a human spirit but a glass demon that knows nothing but pain. It can escape from this curse, but only if it skates to the moon and swallows it. Skate Story’s demon is not a malevolent entity, though. As players speed through the underworld and pull off awesome grinds and sick tricks, they’ll have the option of shattering other demons and rescuing whatever lost souls they encounter along the way. Do all those demons deserve shattering and do all those souls deserve saving? Perhaps that’s a decision players will have to make.
As players speed through the underworld and pull off awesome grinds and sick tricks, they’ll have the option of shattering other demons and rescuing whatever lost souls they encounter along the way.
Devolver Digitalactually hosted a playable demo of Skate Story atTokyo Game Show 2024,allowing players to run through what looked like the game’s opening stage. And, good news, it played well. The controls were smooth; pulling off tricks felt natural for the most part, and the visuals were just as entrancing as the trailers make them out to be. The music and soundscape, though, were the stars. They instantly pulled one in and easily immersed them. Seriously, keep an eye out for this one.
Skate Story launches for PC and PlayStation 5 in 2025.
Skate Story
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