Skate Story

Can't sleep? Moon too bright? Want to eat it? It's a simple goal for a demon in the underworld, as you'll find in this gorgeous, extraordinary narrative adventure that just so happens to require skateboarding.

Skate Story is an insane love letter to the sport of skateboarding and the many cultures surrounding it. The game feels like an interactive street skating music video from the 1990s with a camera that creates epic and cinematic moments on every level, and a soundtrack from Blood Cultures that perfectly fits every moment from ambient chill spots to chaotic rhythms for boss battles. The visuals are accentuated by truly unique character models, wild art styles, a beautiful contrast of light and dark, and stunning set pieces.

Somehow, what looks like a vibes-rich self-indulgent arthouse piece turns out to be a game than not only nails the vibes it is chasing, but also manages to keep pretty well balanced on its actual mechanics. Skate Story may appeal to a very specific audience, but they will likely devour it like a cookie in the night sky.

Skate Story is a surreal, visually striking skateboarding experience that blends precise mechanics with a poetic journey through the underworld. Its intentionally cryptic narrative is elevated by a powerful atmosphere and an exceptional soundtrack. Far removed from traditional skate games, it stands out as one of the most distinctive releases of 2025.

Skate Story isn’t played, it’s felt: every trick is a cry of freedom and every fall a reminder of the pain that runs through it. With its hypnotic aesthetic and atmosphere heavy with symbolism, it turns skateboarding into a dark and fascinating ritual. Beyond a few minor details, what remains is a brutally immersive experience, capable of leaving its mark like few others.

Skate Story is a visually striking and emotionally resonant skateboarding adventure set in a surreal demon realm. Blending expressive gameplay with philosophical storytelling, it challenges players to master a unique trick system while navigating a poetic narrative. Though its structure and controls demand patience, Skate Story rewards persistence with unforgettable style and substance.

Skate Story is an allegorical love letter to skateboarding that expertly captures the essence of skating’s humbling mechanical vocabulary like few other games do. Thoughtful and inventive in unexpected ways, Sam Eng’s boundlessly creative dive into an absurdist underworld is as nourishing as it is refreshing.

Skate Story is a visual masterpiece that blends great storytelling with intense skating action. The different layers of the Underworld serve as your hunting grounds where you aim to swallow the moon and make your grand escape.

Skate Story is a fantastic game for fans of the street skating genre, mixing things up with an incredibly unique setting, striking visuals, and thought-provoking ideas, while still encapsulating both the culture and the mechanics of the genre we love.

Skate Story takes the familiar and flips it, elevating itself beyond a skateboarding game. Its ethereal, thumping soundtrack propels when it wants to, with each new chapter surprising with its visual inventiveness and off-the-wall, abstract ideas. It's like peeling off a bit of wallpaper and finding a whole new world behind it.

Don’t sleep on Skate Story. It's a weird and wonderful journey through the Underworld on a skateboard, with great gameplay, visuals, and music. Highly recommended.

Some experiences must be lived through for the fullness of their message to reach—or at least attempt to reach—your imagination and touch you in some way. Skate Story is like that. But since the goal here was to give you an idea of ​​what to expect, I can say lightly that this is a game worth playing.

A stylish lunicidal skater with peerless vibes and devilishly sleek flip tricks.

Skate Story isn't particularly difficult or demanding of skill, and that works in its favour. Rather than worrying about completing board rotations in time to get the wheels on the ground, the focus is on the path ahead in a way that feels like our demon skater was something of an expert in their past life. This helps make the animations look tight, the gameplay flows through levels, and the initially-scary timing mechanic becomes second-nature. At a certain point the feel of those trick patterns overtakes the visuals, but even without hitting the sweet spot you're still skating like the best of them. I just wanted more to do with all of it. The existing levels are great, but without the ability to play any one of them on-demand it means sitting through dialogue that goes a tiny bit slower than I would like, pushing and Ollie-ing tutorials, and all the other first-timer experiences again and again. But still I do it. Perhaps as I go through more of the story will continue to break through the obscurity it's baked in, and maybe I'll find those missing collectables, but all of that is supplemental, because Skate Story's unique approach to skateboarding feels, looks, and sounds great.

Skate Story is a fantastic entry into the skating genre, not only by virtue of being unlike anything else we’ve seen before, but also because mechanically it’s just a very good skateboarding game.

Skate Story combines strong gameplay, visuals, and audio into a cohesive, memorable experience. Minor issues in the storytelling and small gaps in visual polish keep it from perfection, but overall it’s highly recommended.

Skate Story masterfully blends disparate themes like philosophy, demons, and skateboarding into a unique artistic experience. By prioritizing literary storytelling and psychedelic visuals over complex trick mechanics, it offers an intense and accessible journey that appeals even to those unfamiliar with the sport.

Skate Story is worth checking out if you want a skateboarding experience with an excellent trick system and responsive controls, but also incredibly out there with its narrative and atmosphere.

Skate Story delivers an original concept and incredible audiovisual flair, offering genuinely unique moments when its skating mechanics shine. However, the experience is frequently marred by constant narrative interruptions and inconsistent level design that hinders fluid gameplay, preventing it from reaching its full potential as a truly essential title.

Learning to skate can be hell, and Skate Story proves this by taking us to what’s probably the weirdest vision of the underworld you’ll see without a belly full of Guatemalan Insanity Peppers. Fusing a solid foundation of satisfyingly grounded skate tricks with a bizarre, abstract world bathed in neon and starlight, Skate Story is a wild trip. I question its replayability and the limited nature of some of its objectives (and I did lose focus occasionally while tapping through its regular text-based conversations) but there’s no doubt it’s one of the most distinctive skateboarding games of the decade.

Skate Story is an intoxicating hell ride with great board feel, insane presentation, and a fiercely singular identity. If you love games that scramble your brain and senses, you should definitely give this trip a chance.

Skate Story is a spectacular collision of glass and the most grounded skateboarding I’ve felt in-game. It’s an interesting observation of perseverance in the face of brittle fragility that’s undercut by a need to make its journey palatable, and its stubborn hesitance to push the player closer to their breaking point. As an experiential trip, Skate Story remains a must-play.

Skate Story is a strange game. It's bizarre, obscure, and frequently ridiculous, so the tone and atmosphere might be too off-putting for some. If it works for you, I suspect it is really going to work for you. The gameplay is perfectly serviceable, and while it never quite reaches the heights of excellence, it more than shines for its purposes. Skate Story is a game that shines when taken as a whole, particularly the way the graphics and music work together. If you're even remotely curious about the concept, it's worth giving it a shot.

Skate Story is a sensory feast of crystalline visuals, psychedelic sounds and rapturous movement. Its story may get in its own way a few too many times to be a completely propelling experience, but the audacity of its meditations on vulnerability and drive through both its premise and style nonetheless make Skate Story feel like a love letter to skateboarding as a craft. This is a very special skateboarding game that, in those moments when its style, mechanics and ideas all click into place, shines brighter than a diamond under moonlight.

Skate Story offers an original approach to skateboarding, using it as a tool for movement and combat rather than a purely athletic discipline. The physics are solid and accurately convey weight and inertia, while the controls are responsive and accessible, allowing players to chain together tricks and combos without excessive technical barriers. The boss fight system, based on speed and scoring, works well and enhances the gameplay. However, the level design remains cautious: the routes offer few opportunities for creative experimentation, board customization is superficial, and the quests, while clear in their objectives, sometimes feel like simple gameplay pretexts rather than genuine storytelling progressions.

It's difficult to adequately rate Skate Story, as the game constantly oscillates between wonderful musical moments and incredibly generic, open-world sections, creating a yo-yo effect on the overall quality graph. But since a rating is necessary, 7/10 seems to reasonably reflect my overall impression. Sam Eng offers controls that are both simple and comprehensive, with a well-designed tutorial system that constantly introduces new moves to master, allowing you to skip the less engaging moments and focus on the best parts. It's a visually striking game that's worth checking out.