The Grind: Vol 1

[tough crypt]

Welcome to The Grind! What is The Grind? This is our platform to talk directly to you, the community. We will share details about skate., answering your questions directly, and talk about where we’re at in development (from playtesting onward). We want The Grind to tell you everything you need to know about skate. before we open up San Vansterdam in Early Access later this year.

The Grind is about you, our players, and for it to work, we need your questions. We are opening a new question submission form in the official Discord and we’ll pull questions from there for our next volume of The Grind, coming in May.

Start adding your questions for the development team in the new #questions . And please – don’t hold back. Ask the questions that you really want answers to.

Let’s get Vol 1 of The Grind rolling!

What’s happening with the skate. Insider Playtest?

In Sept 2024, we began our Always-On Playtest. This new phase tests the game in a permanent live environment, with servers running around the clock. We began with PC and mobile testing and rolled out a small wave of console test invites.

In March, we invited our biggest wave of testers to date, launched the 0.26.0 playtest update, and turned on virtual currency testing for PS and PC testers. We’ve updated the city, added more challenges, updated visuals, fixed bugs from 0.25.0, and much more.

As skate. Insiders share their feedback and issues, the Full Circle team is working to address these reports and continually improve the gameplay and the feel of skating in San Vansterdam. We're building this game in collaboration with the community, and that’s why these playtests and the sharing of bugs, issues, and feedback is so important.

To date, we’ve invited more than 200K players into the playtest, and that massive amount of feedback (over 30K posts on the playtest forums and over 20K survey responses) has helped steer the direction of skate. and improve the gameplay and performance. So thank you, testers, for all that you’ve done so far and continue to do. And if you’re reading this and still waiting for an invite, don’t worry, we’re planning on sending out another large wave of invites in June.

Just for fun, we asked our data team to share some of the things you’ve all been doing in the playtest. Check out some of the highlights of your accomplishments in San Vansterdam:

More than 16 million kickflips*
More than 4.8 million 50-50 Grinds landed - nothin’ but bolts!
The Longest Grind (so far) – more than 200 meters! That’s about 15 school buses!
More than 40 million Total Wipeouts – Ouch!
More than 6.5 million Challenges completed

includes varial and nollie kickflips *

Now, let’s answer some of those questions you’ve asked us that need answers!

Your Q’s, our A’s.

Is skate. still launching in 2025?

• Yes! We are still planning on launching in Early Access later this year. We have an ambitious vision for skate.: an ever-growing, ever-evolving skateboarding sandbox that expands over time with the feedback of the players living in San Vansterdam. Our Early Access launch will only be Day One of that experience, a starting point from which new features, improvements, and content will be added over time.
• We don’t consider the Early Access launch the “finished version” of skate., and neither should you. But the skateboarding experience will be great, and you’ll have tons to do with your friends in San Vansterdam.
• We can’t wait to share more details about what we have planned, both for day one of Early Access and in the months that follow. We’ll be updating you regularly over the next few months so keep an eye out right here and on our official social channels to stay up to date.

Will skate. have an offline mode?

• The simple answer: No. The game and city are designed to be a living, breathing massively multiplayer skateboarding sandbox that is always online and always evolving. You'll see bigger things evolve, like changes to the city over time, well as smaller things, like live events and other in-game activities. In order to deliver on our vision of a skateboarding world, the game will always require a live connection. That is probably not much of a surprise if you've been in our playtest.

How did you come up with the name San Vansterdam?

• We TOTALLY conducted extensive scientific, data-driven research and didn't just spitball names until we found something everyone didn't hate. We promise.

**Is cross-play/cross-progression in the playtest? **

• Absolutely! When you load in, you can see if someone is on a console or PC with cross-play on by default. And with cross-progression, if you have access to more than one platform for playtesting, you can literally log out of one platform, and launch the playtest on the other platform, and you'll start exactly where you logged out.

Hey, I signed up but never got in. What gives?

• It's nothing personal, we promise! To make our testing most effective and to ensure stability, we are providing access to testers in waves. But rest assured, before we launch into Early Access, everyone who has registered as skate. Insiders will get an invite to come playtest the game.

**Why are microtransactions active in the playtest? **

• San Vansterdam will be a living skating world, and we want to effectively support ongoing development while also offering a system that feels fair and fun for all of our players.
• To get there, we're running extensive testing across PC and PS (Xbox testing will be rolling out later) to catch any issues or pain points, and to ensure that the content represents a fair value for our players.
• We know that using real money during a playtest is a little unusual, but we think it's the best way to properly assess and adjust the system before launch. If you see prices or other things changing over time, please understand that this is normal. And of course, you will receive the amount you spent during playtesting in San Van Bucks (SVB) when we reset for Early Access launch.

**What happens with any money I spend during the Playtest? **

• Like we said, if you choose to participate in this test and spend real money, whatever you spend will be returned to you in SVB when the game launches for Early Access. If you buy $20 of SVB, you will enter Early Access with $20 worth of SVB waiting for you on the same EA account.
• While it's important to us for testing, we understand some of you may feel uncomfortable spending real money in a test-phase game. So if you don't want to spend your money right now, we totally get it, and your feedback is always important to us.

Is everything "cool" going to be locked behind a paywall?

• We are still adjusting the in-game rewards system, including the items available with San Van Bucks and the earnable Rip Chips currency, which will allow you to grab items from Product Boxes by completing Challenges and ranking up the districts of San Vansterdam. As mentioned in The Board Room Ep 3, skate. will not have paid lootboxes. The bottom line -- there will be "cool" things for you to earn and customize your character without having to spend real cash.

Will there be updates to the map?

• Yes, we'll be rolling out new areas and map updates periodically.

Will I have to pay to level up the stats of my character?

• skate. isn't a pay-to-win game, so there will be no paying to increase your skater's skills (there also are no skill stats to increase for your skater anyway). Your stats are in your fingers - how good you Flick-it is how good you are in San Vansterdam. Practice makes pro, not a list of numbers in a stat sheet.

Thanks for joining us for the first volume of The Grind. We hope you enjoyed hearing a bit from us and having us answer your questions directly.

Make sure you submit your questions in here for our next volume of The Grind.

See you in San Vansterdam,

The skate. Team