Fans of the extreme sports genre are looking forward to the return of major skateboarding franchises with the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 Remaster and Skate 4, EA's most requested game in 10 years. Before those games make their way into people's hands, Easy Day Studios released Skater XL this July after years in early access, and long-time players have been capitalizing with some impressive mods — including one that adds an old Tony Hawk map.
Aaronb543 released a project on July 1 through the site Mod.io that adds the "New Jersey" map from Tony Hawk's Underground into Skater XL, complete with "a huge amount of spots and creativity," as well as multiple building interiors that can be accessed including Paralta's skate shop and the player's house. An earlier version uploaded to a Skater XL-specific mod directory June 16 says the port has upresed textures "for a much cleaner look," with one fan called JAHDexe creating a promo video on YouTube using that build.
Easy Day Studios announced that Skater XL includes community-created maps at launch, so the developer already has a strong bond with its players. However, this mod bringing in an old Tony Hawk's Underground map, as well as a host of other mods that can be found for anything from new clothes to skateboard decks, suggests the game has a lot of lasting potential.
The game originally debuted through Steam early access in 2018, and has garnered a large community of fans since. However, Skater XL received middling reviews around launch for its niche, realism-focused premise, technical problems, and a lack of access to community content through console versions.
That focus on realism has also left many players concerned with the achievements that were added for the game's official release. One Skater XL achievement is absurdly difficult to earn, requiring players to skate a total of 40,000 kilometers, which has been calculated to take about 2,700 real-world hours.
Despite these concerns, Skater XL comes into the mainstream with a strong, pre-established fanbase that should keep it alive through mods like Aaronb543's New Jersey map. Even if it doesn't land for everyone, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 is coming with over 35 new artists on the soundtrack, which should offer long-time fans something they can look forward to alongside the impending release of EA's Skate 4.
Skater XL is now available for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and is coming soon to the Nintendo Switch.