Neversoft finished with Tony Hawk's

By Robert Purchese Published 12 January, 2009

"Time for someone else to add fresh ideas."

Neversoft boss Joel Jewett has said the studio will finally walk away from the Tony Hawk's series it created and nurtured to worldwide success.

"It's probably best for the franchise," Jewett told local newspaper Great Falls Tribune. "It's time for someone else to add fresh ideas to it."

Neversoft will continue to pump out Guitar Hero games for Activision, including fully-fledged instalments as well as band-based spin-offs like Guitar Hero: Metallica and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.

As for Tony Hawk's, there appears to be change on the horizon, after Activision all but revealed a skateboard peripheral at a press conference. "You're not going to be playing this game with a controller in your hands," spouted execs in crisp suits.

However, the name (thought to be Tony Hawk's Adrenaline), dates and details are all still to be confirmed.

Neversoft launched the Tony Hawk's series with Pro Skater on PSone back in 1999, with eight console-based instalments following over the years.

The series has petered out as of late, though, struggling after EA's acclaimed Skate brand launched in late 2007.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • Eraysor #1 3 years ago

    Whoever takes over is going to have a hard fight against Skate 2.

  • andywilkie35 #2 3 years ago

    Tony Hawk's 2 on the PSone was one of the best games I've ever played, must have sunk 100s of hours into that game

    Shame the rest of them were either shit (Tony Hawk's 3 - utter tripe) or just not as good (Underground)

  • Eighthours #3 3 years ago

    Throwing in the towel, there, really. GH is easy money, I suppose.

  • lambtron #4 3 years ago

    I think Eighthours has hit the nail on the head.

  • nickthegun #5 3 years ago

    Its true. You wouldnt want a franchise to get stale by releasing half arsed, incremental updates every year.

    And the handing over of a major franchise seems.....ah fuck it...its too early for that much sarcasm.

  • mrmonkey1980 #6 3 years ago

    I'd be the first to admit that TH has gone downhill despite having played every version, but Skate is just another flawed game in its place. What Skateboarding games need are instinctive controls and a decent game world. TH managed one, Skate managed one. Hopefully either Skate 2 or the new TH will manage to merge the two.

    I've never had as much fun as I have with the original TH, but THUG 2 came pretty close with all its nostalgic levels.

  • Tomo #7 3 years ago

    Went downhill after the first one imo.

  • OllyJ #8 3 years ago

    The obsession with free roaming worlds killed the franchise more than Bam and his posse could ever have done, Skate is still a boring massive world where huge areas are just flat roads with far too many objects to fall over due to the thumb mangling controls.

    I'd love to see a back to basics THPs game with tight controls (no peripherals) small learnable maps and tons of risk/reward to be had that made the games so essential in the first place.

    in fact just release THPS2 and 3 on XBLA.

  • BillyBrush #9 3 years ago

    Well, Skate may not be great for specific moves you need to pull off with wooly stick controls (360 flip was it, big blacks challenge - mare) but it has a great viewpoint and grinding felt great...you could almost feel the wheels scrub the railings when twisting the trucks too far..

  • OnlyMe #10 3 years ago

    Go back to the roots, make it an arcade skating game with some grounds in reality (the tricks should be more or less do-able), and geniously designed smaller levels like in the first three games. It doesn't need to compete with Skate that way, it'll be in a totally different genre.

    Today it seems every semi-serious sports game is striving for realism, and there's never some kind of middle ground. In sports games, there's space for three different approaches. Realism (FIFA/PES), semi-realism (SWOS/Kick Off 2), or over-the-top-arcade (FIFA Street, Mario Football, etc). Same with skating games, and I'd love to see Tony Hawk going the semi-realism route with the first three games in mind.

  • mrmonkey1980 #11 3 years ago

    I agree, the smaller levels were a lot better. You could actually plan out lines and try and try to get them until you perfected it. In all the recent versions of tony hawk's the worlds are just so big it's over whelming. That's why I always loved Horse so much, it made you concentrate on one particular line until someone nailed it.

  • Cid #12 3 years ago

    I really liked THUG, and was incredibly disappointed that they didn't even attempt to build on it in the next game.

    I'm not too bothered about this. I'm done with the Hawk series as well.

  • arfling #13 3 years ago

    Smaller self contained levels were better, but a worse change for me was letting you get off the board. It encouraged a level design with ladders that just missed the point completely. Who wants a skateboarding game where you have to walk?
    Edited by 1 at 12/01/09 @ 13:46

  • mrmonkey1980 #14 3 years ago

    Personally I liked getting off the board. It saved sitting through those awkward moments where you just want to turn around to line up for some goal but there isn't enough room for the turning circle and you bump into something, turning you back around and oh.. look you've ran out of time. Now you have to do the whole thing all over again! That was far more frustrating.

  • Pastici #15 3 years ago

    It got shit when they started adding storylines. THPS4 was my favorite and the main reason was that you just skated for the fun of it. I didn't mind the story in Skate, rise to fame, simple. I like to think that Skate has the middle ground, you can do things that you can't do in real life but its still set quite firmly in reality.

  • Cid #16 3 years ago

    I thought the ability to get off your board was a good idea (for the same reason as mrmonkey1980), but allowing you to work it into combos was a bit silly.

    I used to like the wacky hidden characters like Darth Maul, Iron Man and Shrek. If I remember correctly they stopped using them after THUG2 and just made all the pedestrians unlockable.

  • consignia #17 3 years ago

    Yeah, I remember THPS2 had Spiderman as an unlockable, and he even had a skate video, where someone dressed up as Spidey and skated along his theme tune it was awesome.

    I must say, I've totally stopped caring about THPS, I really loved the series, way beyond most people (I liked everyone up to THUG2 and most people liked upto 3 or 4, I don't mean I greater fan than others), but it lost it's mojo with THAW, and THP8 was so dull that it has not inspired me to look further. It was great while it lasted though.

  • knightmt #18 3 years ago

    I still like these games they are quick and versatile,
    enjoyed skate but got bored when it seemed to go on forever.
    My favourite part of the last game was still the classic mode on the arcade machine.
    They need to stop adding features and just work on interaction.
    The first four were great just for the simplicity.

  • Cloudane #19 3 years ago

    I quite liked the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, I REALLY liked THPS2 then I fell in love with THPS3 - I must have poured 100+ hours into that game alone.

    It all went slowly downhill after Tony Hawk's fourth outing; I didn't mind American Wasteland - no honestly! - but the series never really captured the glory days any more, which is a shame.

    I do hope the new Tony Hawk's game will go out with a bang though.

  • shotgun44 #20 3 years ago

    me and my mate used to play the first 3 for hours! The smaller levels were so much better. Same with Matt Hoffmans pro bmx. After that the open world stuff was just plain annoying. Never have been a fan of change though...

  • tomwhitaker #21 3 years ago

    A lot of people are saying the same things but OllyJ got there first.

    The obsession with free roaming worlds killed the franchise more than Bam and his posse could ever have done, Skate is still a boring massive world where huge areas are just flat roads with far too many objects to fall over due to the thumb mangling controls.

    I'd love to see a back to basics THPs game with tight controls (no peripherals) small learnable maps and tons of risk/reward to be had that made the games so essential in the first place.

    in fact just release THPS2 and 3 on XBLA.

    So so true. Would be nice if they could go out with a bang by releasing a compilation of the levels from 1-3 in a tarted up engine on XBLA.

  • patchbox360 #22 3 years ago

    i stopped skating bcos of this game - bet i could frontside nollie over a table by this time if i had kept skating for real

  • OllyJ #23 3 years ago

    "So so true. Would be nice if they could go out with a bang by releasing a compilation of the levels from 1-3 in a tarted up engine on XBLA. "

    I'd so buy that, how amazing would that be, to play warehouse, airport, venice beach, school 2, shipyard even the bonus cruiseship level from 3!!

    the fact that this probably will not happen makes me a little sad :(