Skate Story is a skating game with one big twist: You’re made of glass

Tony Hawk may have got back on his feet after a 900 fail in the Pro Skater games, but it was a different story in real life – broken bones, dislodged teeth, and concussions were all part of the pain. Now, imagine if the birdman were made of glass.

If a trip to the dentist after failing to land a trick sounds bad, in Skate Story, you shatter into thousands of pieces. First revealed in 2022, the novel idea of a skater made of glass was enough to turn heads and keep people thousands transfixed upon every snippet of new information.

Now, after three years and multiple delays, it’s finally set for release on December 8. We spoke to solo developer Sam Eng, who told us that despite its unforgiving concept, it is actually accessible.

Skating your way out of hell

“It used to be even more hardcore,” Eng told us. “If you touched anything, you exploded into glass. It was interesting, but not very fun. But over time, polishing more and more, it gets to where it is now. A balance between Skate and Tony Hawk. Arcadey and approachable, but still grounded and realistic.”

It’s not just its central conceit that makes it stand out, but the story and setting. As Eng told a baffled Uber driver, his “game is kind of like Tony Hawk’s… except you’re a skater made of glass and you’re skating through hell trying to eat the moon.”

The Uber driver’s first reaction was simply. “Oh.”

Devolver Digital

In Skate Story, you are a demon trapped in the underworld. To free your soul from endless torment, you strike a deal to be freed on one condition: you eat the moon (and no, it’s not made of cheese). This means hitting some radical combos, epic lines, and trying not to fall over.

Having played the demo, Eng is right – it’s a good blend of the arcadey Tony Hawk’s skateboarding and the authenticity of Skate. This means that it’s simple to pull off one of the many tricks with the press of a button, but you still need to nail both timing and positioning to land it.

The more you mix your tricks up, the higher your score, and while certain challenges and even boss battles will have you striving for bigger numbers, you can also always just have a chill one and float around – the underworld is your oyster.

Devolver Digital

And with it being the underworld, Skate Story has a very different look and feel to most skateboarding games. It has a retro futurism aesthetic, like the 80s for the modern age as you skate around a surreal, dreamlike world. It’s perfectly matched by the soundtrack, with tunes from Blood Cultures, who Eng used to listen to while skating home from work.

“I was into this synthpop band called Blood Cultures. I would be skating home at night listening to them,” he said. “I was just like… ‘I wonder if they’d want to make music for a game.’ So I just emailed them. I found an email on Bandcamp.

“They wanted to try it, they thought it was cool. They were very friendly with streamers, whitelisted a bunch of tracks before we made some original tracks for the game.”

From the quieter moments exploring one of the smaller open-world chunks, trying to wrap your head around… everything, to the high octane sequences where you’re skating downhill, pulse pounding as you ollie over every obstacle in your path, it’s all expertly woven together.

Skate Story rolls its way onto digital storefronts on December 8, 2025. It’s set to launch across PS5, Switch 2, PC, and macOS.

For a similar case to Skate Story, check out our feature on Wheel World. And for more indie games you might not be clued in on yet, brush up on our New Game+ series.