During our hands-on with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 in Los Angeles this week, we were afforded the opportunity to sit down with Mike Rossi, the man heading up all things design at Iron Galaxy.
We had a chat about what goes into rebuilding iconic video games, the challenges that came with reframing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4’s career mode, and breaking bones for the love of the game.
Read our full hands-on preview here.
You can find our chat below.
Firstly, thanks for giving up your time to chat with us. Could you first run us through your role within the team and what it is you do?
So I’m Mike Rossi, I’m Design Director at Iron Galaxy. My role is overseeing the design team, I like to say I try to move barriers out of the way and allow the design team to be able to accomplish what they need to accomplish. Put them in touch with the researchers they need, or communicate with the other directors on the project.
Also, as we’re an external partner with Activision, part of my role is to work with Activision and folks on our side, and communicate anything they’re hoping for or answer any questions they have.
You worked on Spyro’s Reignited Trilogy, so you’ve got chops when it comes to bringing games up to speed and meeting modern standards. How much work goes into remaking games like this? Is there much of a starting base, or is it all ground up?
So, with 3+4, we actually were able to use the 1+2 work, so we had that basis to work off of there. In that case, we were able to start from that awesome foundation established in 1+2.
That’s how that works, but it differs for other projects.
It was rumoured at one point, before Vicarious Visions got folded into Blizzard Albany, that they were working on a version of this game. Is this all Iron Galaxy?
Yeah, this was the stuff we worked on. As I said, we were able to use the 1+2 stuff that was there, but everything that you see in the game has Iron Galaxy’s hands on it.
Was it difficult to adapt the objectives and level design of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 into the two-minute format?
Difficult feels strong, because again, it’s all kind of how you look at it. In some cases, you know, it was very obvious. I know one of the things we definitely had to talk about was that some of these maps are huge.
For instance, I know one thing we iterated on a lot was the S-K-A-T-E line in Alcatraz. Does it feel natural with the player getting to where we want to start the line, and does it feel natural within the level? There’s no reference point for that. And there was a lot of stuff we had to iterate on, test, and tweak.
A lot of it came down to: “How do we place this?”
Because we’re not interacting with NPCs, you’re starting in one place and then having to navigate around to where the different goals are in the level.
Some negative feedback online has stemmed from Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4’s goals changing to the two-minute format. It was confirmed earlier that you can change the parameters of a park to give yourself an hour. Is this a means of meeting people halfway, or is it a fortunate, happy coincidence?
No, it was much more the latter. We know going into it that it was going to be tough and that people were going to be looking at it.
But we felt this was the right way to approach it, and it made it a more cohesive package. We had already been thinking, you know, we’ve got the mods, which, in our eyes, is another way of putting accessibility things in.
And a lot of the feedback we were getting internally, plus we’d see online, was that people didn’t always love the two-minute timer. You know, they’d want just a little bit more time. “Oh, I was just about to figure that out, or finish this thing.”
“If only I had one more minute.”
And so why not give them that extra minute, or whatever extra time they want? It doesn’t feel like that impacts the overall goal that we’re trying to accomplish; it doesn’t impact progression. So we just threw that in, it’s a nice coincidence, and now, hopefully, we can point to that as a solution for those people who are looking for more time in those levels.
How much refinement would you say goes into remaking these games? Is it a lot, or are a lot of the core tenets that are there sort of evergreen?
So, it’s one of those cases where you’re looking at the old and the new, and you’re like: “Well, this is definitely a lot more improved.”
I think the evergreen aspect of it is what 1+2 did with the feel, or as we refer to it internally, the ‘Tony feel’. That was one of those things where we said, “Don’t touch that.”
The other aspect was, when bringing it up to a modern visual standard, how does that end up impacting gameplay? How does that impact the feel? If we add these new lights, or add this new detail to this area, does that change how the player reads a certain line, or how they navigate the world?
And so that was the thing that we needed to keep in mind as we tried to pack as much visual excitement and content into the levels.
When was it discussed that you’d be marking your own parks, like Waterpark, for the game?
I think it was always on the table early on. I think it was part of our pitch. It felt like the next thing. Where do we go beyond what Pro Skater 1+2 did, and so I think that had always been a part of the plan.
Were there any little nods or Easter Eggs that you guys had fun putting into Waterpark?
I think the biggest Easter Egg I, unfortunately, can’t talk about. There’s a hint about another level that we haven’t talked about.
Hopefully, the players will figure that out once it comes out.
I grew up on these games, but my lack of balance forbids me from being able to hop on a board myself for fear I’d break something. It turns out you did just that in researching for this game, run us through that.
I’m always looking for fun exercise things to do, and one of those was picking up skateboarding. I’ve also got two littles, so it seemed like a fun thing that I could do with them. I was working on my balance one day, my weight got too far back on the board, and it flew out from under me.
I fell back, landed on my arm, and with the momentum, my arm twisted, and it broke my arm. It stinks, but I got back up. I’ve been getting back on the board, but I broke my rib about a month ago [laughs].
You’re not prepared to take that as a sign?
No, no! I just keep saying that it’s me trying to show Activision how dedicated we are to the franchise.
The cheapest copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 is $74 with free shipping on Amazon.
