I’ve always been interested in Skater XL since it released and recently bought it on sale. And I was bored with it in ten minutes. You see, outside of challenges, aka specific moves you are challenged to pull off, there’s not a whole lot to do here. I guess the point was to chill out and with your friends online. You can join public rooms and skate with others(even a year into release), but you’re still skating without a point. The is not Skate(at least the first 3) with its story and tournaments and mini-games. You just skate in Skater XL and that’s it. But let’s back up.
As you can see in the skate run above, the skating is quality in Skater XL. It is easy to pull off tricks. The game starts with a tutorial that is good at nailing the basics, though it leaves out somethings, like board grabs and grinding. There is a the now fairly standard respawn point you can put down and restart if you fail a line. There are eight maps in the Switch version, the five official maps, and three curated ones created by the community. Some are obviously better than others, but they’re all decent.
So now back to the problem I had at the start, the pointlessness of Skater XL. There are those challenges to complete, but they don’t seem to unlock anything. So, there’s nothing to skate for there other than completeness. Even Skateboard Drifting With Maxwell Cat had more of a clear goal to it. There is an extensive set of gear to deck out your skater with, but no real reason to do so. I guess, if you wanted to, you could say Skater XL is skating for skating’s sake, but I don’t think that’s enough here. Not when it pales in comparison to the Skate Series or the early Tony Hawk games. Now, what to give it? It’ll give it a YMMV with a seven back-end score. The core game is solid, just that you have to make your own point.
Overall: Skater XL is a solid skate game, just the lack of a clear point or goals drag this down from the greatness it could have achieved.
Verdict: YMMV
| Release Date | 12/5/23 |
| Cost | $39.99 |
| Publisher | Easy Day Studios |
| ESRB Rating | E |
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