Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 released on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 Tuesday, and it looks to be a complete disaster. No review copies for the game were sent out ahead of time to critics, it has a massive 7.7 GB day one patch (almost double the 4.6 GB found on the disc), and its recently changed art style leaves much to be desired.
It's also a glitch-filled mess. Don't believe it? Check out the video below from the good folks over at Eurogamer. They compiled the video from 60 minutes of gameplay, recorded after downloading the day one patch. To have so many cases of inexplicable physics and collision detection problems in a mere 60 minutes of gameplay is almost unheard of.
While it makes for some truly hilarious gameplay footage, it does not make for good skating. Reports have been circulating that the game's day one patch may have been due only to the tutorial and park builder mode being included on the disc, with the rest of the game needing to be downloaded. Activision said that isn't the case, in a statement to Game Informer:
"The core of the game is present on the disc and playable without downloading the patch. The patch does contain tweaks that are needed to fully integrate dedicated server support, which is needed if the player is connected to the Internet since the game is always online. The patch also gives the players additional content as well as improved stability and overall experience."
Note that Activision's statement does note that the patch includes "additional content" — so how much of the game really is on the disc is still up in the air. As for the part about "improved stability and overall experience"? You don't have to look hard to see that whatever fixes developer Robomodo did add didn't do much to improve, well, anything.
But the real question in all of this is still why? Why is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 such a disaster? What happened? One answer may be found in the fact that Activision's licensing agreement with Tony Hawk ends in 2015, perhaps prompting the publisher to rush out the game far before it was ready to see the light of day.
That's one possible answer, but it's still baffling to see such a powerful and historically fun game franchise laid low. Best stay far away from this one. Far, far away.
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