Out of nowhere, the Skate 3 servers were put back online and nobody knows why. Many people think that this strange change hints towards the potential for a near future Skate 4 release.
It makes sense if you think about it. We mentioned before that Skate 4 was coming, and whilst the developers have kept very quiet, it wouldn’t make sense for the servers to just come back online for a franchise that’s been left for dead.
We think that the revival of the Skate 3 servers can only mean one thing – Skate 4 is coming and it’s coming soon. Here’s everything we know so far, as well as details on how you can get involved with Skate 3’s revived online content.
It started with a cryptic Tweet
The revival of Skate 3’s servers would mostly have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the prior rumors about the release of Skate 4.
At the end of January 2017, the senior Manager of EA’s community management team tweeted ‘#skate4’. Everybody at EA denied that Skate 4 was being worked on, but this kind of Tweet doesn’t just get put up for no reason.
The Tweet in question is still live, so there was no accident here. Later in 2017, a Swedish retailer published a listing for Skate 4. It has since been removed, but it sat on the website long enough for people to pick it up and share it around the internet.
And now, the Skate 3 servers have gone live again. We can only assume that the servers have gone live because the Skate 4 development team is using the same servers to test some features in Skate 4 during development.
No Skate 4 at E3 2018
After all of the rumors and leaks surrounding Skate 4, many people were expecting Skate 4 to get an announcement during E3 2018. Despite Skate 4 not appearing on the list of E3 games to be announced, many people were still hopeful.
Unfortunately, E3 2018 went by without a single mention of Skate 4, but we still don’t think the journey is over yet.
We think that Skate 4 has been in development for some time, but the developers aren’t yet ready to share it with the world.
It has been 8 years since Skate 3, and fans of the franchise have never been hungrier for a new Skate game.
We’re not sure when we will hear more about Skate 4, but it should be soon. We may have to wait until E3 2019, but hopefully if that is the case, we’ll be given a release date shortly after.
This is all speculation on my part, but after all the recent talk surrounding Skate 4’s potential release, and with the Skate 3 servers coming back online, it’s what makes the most sense to me.
You can go play Skate 3 online right now
Now that the Skate 3 servers are back online, it sort of feels like Christmas. If you’re a fan of the Skate franchise, you’ll want to find your old copy of the game or go pick up a second hand copy because many of the features that were switched off are now available again.
All of the multiplayer content is now available again, as well as some features that required online access to function.
Here’s a look at what you can now do in Skate 3 again now that the servers are working.
Community Parks
Community parks are the life and blood of Skate 3 longevity. Without community parks, Skate 3 feels almost empty and the social aspect of the game is almost entirely wiped out.
The Community parks feature essentially allows players to create their very own skate parks, test them out, and then upload them to the online servers for other people to try. If creating isn’t your thing, you can go online and download other people’s parks instead.
The Skate 3 community park tools have always been pretty spectacular. You can create all sorts of wacky parks with the tools that are given to you.
Skate 3 Team Lobbies
Team lobbies is a feature in Skate 3 that lets you create or join teams of other players and go up against other teams online.
For a very long time, this feature has been completely unavailable due to a lack of servers.
Even longer than that, though, the player base was too small for team lobbies to work very well. Now that there has been renewed interest in Skate 3, it seems like it’s finally easier to set up team lobbies again.
Team lobbies adds a level of competitiveness to Skate 3. If you were a diehard Skate 3 fan back in the day and felt that you were pretty good at the game, you are going to want to get involved now that the servers are back online.
Community Videos and Photos
The community videos and photos feature is now back online and all of the previously uploaded content is available too. If you ever made any videos or photos in the past and you’d like to go on a bit of a nostalgia trip, make sure to check out your own content in the game.
Alongside community parks, the community videos and photos have retained all of their past download and rating stats, so you’ll be able to quickly find the most popular player created content within seconds. This will be all of the stuff that was popular back when the Skate 3 servers were last online.
Summary
So that wraps it up. If you’re looking to play Skate 3 online again, now’s your chance. And remember that Skate 4 is likely to be on its way very soon as well.
This is just my opinion here, but there have been so many rumors about Skate 4 and now that the Skate 3 servers are back online, I feel like it has to be coming. Do you think that the servers coming online suggests that Skate 4 is coming, or is it just a coincidence?