The new, live-service Skate gets the most important thing right: the skating gameplay is actually very good, and a wonderful recreation of the Flick-It controls that made the original trilogy so beloved. Unfortunately, the rest of the early access game isn’t so stellar. The stylized graphics aren’t terribly eye-catching, and the story mode isn’t much of a story mode at all, but by far the most grating part of Skate is its voice acting – Vee in particular.

Amid the deluge of AI slop we have to put up with on the internet, Skate decided to make an AI chatbot, which isn’t actually an AI chatbot, your constant companion. Vee walks you through the game’s tutorial and introduces challenges, but also constantly quips as you skate, grind, and skydive all over San Van. Luckily, there’s a simple solution to Skate‘s most annoying character.

Sweet Silence

To better cultivate the relaxing vibes Skate is going for, I recommend turning off Vee’s gameplay comments in the settings. From the pause menu, go into the settings, then to the audio menu, and scroll down to Gameplay Vee Comments. It’s the second from the bottom, and switching it to Disabled turns off Vee’s ambient dialog, the unskippable observations on your skating.

This will not stop Vee from giving a spiel before every challenge, but that can be remedied too. If Vee is really getting on your nerves, try turning VO Volume down to zero, and turning off subtitles. This disables all the voice-overs in Skate, but it will be inconsequential if you’ve already finished all the available missions. With Vee stifled, you can earn Rip Chips in peace, and even listen to Skate‘s soundtrack uninterrupted.

Skate 4’s Characters & Voice Acting Are Series Lows

Please Stop Talking About My Skater Eyes

I’ve been having a decent time with Skate overall, but it’s definitely being carried by the actual skating, which I find pretty engaging and satisfying to master in short sessions. The shortage of content is about what I expected from a free-to-play, live-service iteration of the series in early access, but almost as off-putting as its microtransactions is its sanitized characters who often sound like they’ve just recently learned what a skateboard even is.

Vee is definitely the worst (which is unfortunate since she’s the most pervasive), but it’s hard to overstate how lackadaisical every single line read in the game sounds. It’s a bizarre, corporate pantomime of skating culture, which is a huge shame considering how great the original Skate trilogy was at capturing the scene. I finally snapped when it took me a significant number of tries to complete a sequence of tricks in a mission and I had to listen to the same obnoxious voice line repeatedly; I turned VO Volume all the way down and disabled subtitles.

Skate has some potential, if only because of the series’ trademark gameplay. The rest of the experience is either supremely lacking, or actively detrimental to enjoyment. Vee as a character isn’t even a big swing, but it’s still a big miss, and Skate is much better if you simply axe the bot’s voice lines altogether.

Systems

Released

September 16, 2025

ESRB

Teen / Crude Humor, Lyrics, Mild Violence, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact

Developer(s)

Full Circle

Engine

Frostbite

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op

Cross-Platform Play

Yes – All Platforms