Welcome to The Grind: Vol 6!
We made it - Early Access is here! It's been incredible for us to welcome so many new skaters to San Vansterdam this week! Thanks for your patience while we continue to flex the servers to fit you all in! And for coming back here to check out The Grind. Our teams continue to triage and work on your bug and issue reports and feedback posted on our official skate. Forums. Last week we shared some top-tracked Known Issues here, and the team continues to work on more bugs as we head to Update 0.28 and Season 1.
If you’re new here, The Grind is where we share important information about upcoming updates and additions, and answer your direct questions we gather off our official Discord. Since April, we’ve dropped 5 volumes of The Grind (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, Vol 4, Vol 5)
In August, we got busy sharing the overview of San Vansterdam in our “Welcome to San Vansterdam” article and allowed sharing of gameplay capture post-August 29 from our playtest to get ready to open the doors for Early Access.
So what’s next for The Grind? Well, with the game live, we want to reduce the time between volumes by shifting to The Weekly Grind. This weekly community post will celebrate the community, content, talk about what’s happening in the city of San Vansterdam, highlight players in the game and sick spots, and more.
Before we jump into the meat of The Grind: Vol 6, we wanted to first thank all our skate. Insiders again for your hours and hours of playtesting, hundreds and thousands of posts sharing bugs, issues, and feedback, and the awesome content we’ve seen. You are why we got to this huge moment and opened the gates of San Van to the world.
And we want to share some fun stats our awesome data team pulled during the skate.Insider Early Access preview (from Aug 26 - Sept 15, 2025).
+181 million Kickflips
+134 Million Ollies
+20 Million Laserflips
+300K Rocket Airs
+81k Japan Airs
+175K Fake Steez Gesture used
We’ll have some stats to share in our first volume of The Weekly Grind that takes a look back at the data from Early Access launch up to Season 1 launch.
In The Grind Vol. 5, we answered one of your most popular questions about the game’s visuals, letting you know that, along with everything else, the characters and world will evolve throughout Early Access and beyond to add more detail and personality. Here’s what we said:
“It’s important to remember that Early Access is just the beginning. Everything from the gameplay to core features to visuals will continue evolving and improving during Early Access and beyond. This is a new game, a new world, and we’re excited about where it’s headed. We think this is the best skateboarding experience we have ever created. Will the visuals change over time? Absolutely. You'll see the characters and world evolve to include even more detail and personality through our future updates.”
Today, we’re ready to show off the very first part of this ongoing evolution. When Season 1 launches on October 7th, you’ll immediately notice a whole new look. The lighting in the world has been adjusted to be a bit less high contrast and more grounded and lived in. It’s like San Van at “Golden Hour.”
While this is only Step One of what will be an ongoing development of the game’s visuals, we want to give you a sneak peek today! And once this update releases, we want your feedback so we can keep improving and iterating.
Check out the before and after shots below to see what’s coming VERY soon.
https://i.imgur.com/0ekLowy.gif
Now, in The Grind: Vol 5, we mentioned skate.Pass and how we’ll roll out Seasons as the game continues to evolve, and this volume of The Grind will jump into that, some new Season 1 content, Founder’s Packs, and more.
Let’s talk skate.Pass first.
skate.Pass
Introducing: the skate.Pass. Starting with Season 1, as you play skate. you will earn in-game Seasonal currency (Tix) that will allow you to unlock new pages of the skate.Pass. Each page unlocks a new set of rewards that you can choose from. Rewards are split into Free and Premium tracks. Everyone must earn skate.Pass levels to unlock rewards, but Free rewards are accessible without owning the Premium pass. Each page of the skate.Pass requires you to earn a total amount of skate.Pass currency, aka Tix, to unlock. You can then exchange that currency for items you want.
For Season 1, it’s a little shorter than regular seasons, so there’s over 80 rewards split between the Free and Premium tracks - including free track customization items like the White Backward Cap or Lucky Strip Cargo pants, decks and gear like SN8K Wheels or the “I Know Skate-Fu” deck, stickers, outfits, and social items like badges and emotes. (Season 1 is a little shorter, but regular seasons going forward will have about 100 items available to unlock in between the Free and Premium tracks of the skate.Pass.) With the Standard and Premium tracks, you can even earn SVB - and use some of that SVB to help buy the next season's Premium skate.Pass.
Don’t worry—you won’t miss out if you can’t complete the Season 1 pass before Season 2 drops in December. As long as you obtain a seasonal Premium skate.Pass before that season ends, you can continue working on Season 1 through Season 2, Season 2 through Season 3, etc. 
Seasons
Each Season in San Van will add more to the game, such as new skateable areas, new Challenges and Tasks (like the weekly “Earn Score in Hedgemont 0/250000”), Seasonal events like the Skate-o-Ween and the 7 Ply Maple Harvest, new brand partners like Santa Cruz, Independent, and Creature, more cosmetics, new tracks to the soundtrack like Operation Ivy’s “Sound System” or Jurassic 5’s “What’s Golden”, plus bug fixes and quality of life improvements. And with each Season, we’ll add more to the city, like adding some spooky decor around San Van for Skate-o-Ween and in-game events.
Through skate.’s Seasons, we’ll bring new content to the game, as well as legacy features and ideas. One thing to note: we’re not looking to remake Skate (2007), Skate 2, or Skate 3, so our focus is on the future, while bringing along the history of the franchise and things we all loved that got us to this point.
We shared the roadmap a bit ago, but check it out if you need a refresher (and we’ll share an updated roadmap as we get closer to Season 3.)
We’re excited to launch Season 1 on October 7, 2025 (and drop game Update .28), and we’ll have more details on what’s coming for Season 1, what’s fixed and improved, and what’s next in the coming weeks.
Founder’s Packs
Founders Packs are available in the in-game store and the skate. Shop.
The Founder’s Packs come in two versions: Standard and Deluxe (you can upgrade the Standard to Deluxe if you want) and the Founder’s Packs are optional and not required to play. Founder’s Pack comes with SVB + cosmetics, skate.Pass Season 1, and more.
So what’s in the packs?
Founder’s Pack
3 Founding Founder Cosmetics**: “The Founding Founder” Title, Varsity Jacket, and Sticker
6 Mocap Cosmetics: Motion Capture Suit and Mocap Deck, Wheels, Trucks, and Stickers
2,800 San Van Bucks: Use San Van Bucks to purchase premium cosmetic items
Premium skate.Pass Season 1: Get access to Season 1’s skate.Pass and unlock premium rewards (Note: skate.Pass available to play at the start of Season 1 on Oct. 7, 2025 and runs thru Dec. 1, 2025; dates may vary or change)†
Founder’s Deluxe Pack
6 Meatman Cosmetics: Meatman Suit, Deck, Wheels, Trucks, and Stickers
Vans Founders Old Skool Shoes***: A Founder’s Deluxe-exclusive Vans Old Skool colorway
3 skate T-Shirts: Skate 1, Skate 2, Skate 3 Throwback Tees
3 Founding Founder Cosmetics**: “The Founding Founder” Title, Varsity Jacket, and Sticker
6 Mocap Cosmetics: Motion Capture Suit and Mocap Deck, Wheels, Trucks, and Stickers
5,900 San Van Bucks: Use San Van Bucks to purchase premium cosmetic items
Premium skate.Pass Season 1: Get access to Season 1’s skate.Pass and unlock premium rewards (Note: skate.Pass available to play at the start of Season 1 on Oct. 7, 2025 and runs thru Dec. 1, 2025; dates may vary or change)†
*Limited-time purchase available until December 2, 2025 10:00 am Pacific Time. Conditions & restrictions apply. See
ea.com/games/skate/skate/game-disclaimers
for details.
**Exclusive to Founder’s Pack or Founder's Deluxe Pack/Upgrade; not available after Dec. 2, 2025
***Exclusive to Founder's Deluxe Pack/Upgrade; not available after Dec. 2, 2025
†Season 1 Skate.Pass available in-game during Season 1 beginning October 7, 2025 through December 2, 2025 at 10:00 am Pacific Time. Skate.Pass content requires all game updates and gameplay to unlock. Exact dates may vary and are subject to change.
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Your Q’s, our A’s.
Let’s dive in.
What brand partners are in the game/coming soon?
We’ve got Girl Skateboard, Chocolate skateboards, Thrasher, Royal Trucks, Vans, Dickies, & Dime, to start off, and in Season 1, we’ll be bringing Santa Cruz, Creature, and Independent to San Vansterdam, just to name a few. With every Season, we’ll be adding more Brand partners and cosmetics - so before a Season starts, we’ll share details on whose fits are coming to San Van. Stay tuned.
What legacy modes are coming to skate.?
Our plan is to continue adding more to do in San Van, including looking at how we can bring legacy game modes to the city. We’ll keep you posted on the progress and when you can expect them through our Seasonal patches. (Remember: our Seasonal updates will also bring Quality of Life fixes, bug fixes, and more features.)
Can we get bigger Throwdown parties?
How big do you want? We’re excited to keep iterating on throwdowns, creating a sesh anywhere in the city to show off your skills (or lack of skills).
You said there are tricks coming in Season 3. Besides Darkslides and Impossibles, what other tricks from Skate 3 are coming and when?
With skate, we resurrected Flick-It in the Frostbite engine and are bringing tricks from the Legacy titles to skate. Impossibles and Expanded Handplants coming in Season 2, with Darkslides and Improved Footplants/Boneless coming in Season 3. Ensuring solid gameplay is very important to us, so you can expect more past Season 3, but that’s all we’re talking about for now. Rest assured, there’s more to come.
Will we ever have to pay for new tricks?
No. You will never have to pay for new tricks. As we add new tricks to skate., you’ll have access to them as soon as they come to the game (update may be required), and they’ll become part of Challenges to help keep up your skill. Once added, a trick will never go away.
Seasons will have a major update. What will be the cadence of other updates?
With each Season, we’ll have a Seasonal Update that addresses QoL issues and bugs and introduces new features, skateable areas, Challenges, and more. Between those updates, we will push back-end fixes and hotfixes as needed to address bugs, crashes, and stability.
Is skate. still coming to mobile devices?
The team is still dedicated to bringing skate to mobile, and we’ll need folks to jump in, kick the tires, and test it, so keep your eyes peeled for those notifications.
Can we get any teasers/info about what’s coming to Brickswich (Challenges/Missions) and when?
Starting with Season 2, we’ll have some teasers for you regarding Brickswich. Stay tuned.
We’ll be starting The Weekly Grind around Season 1 - celebrating the content and activities of the community with y’all.
Join the community at https://discord.gg/skateEA
One last item for this Volume of The Grind: we’ve opened up our New Player Hub with some articles to start off to help new players who’ve never played the Skate franchise, folks who never playtested, and for OGs who may need a reminder here and there, with more on the way. Check it out!
See you in San Vansterdam,
The skate. Team