Last year’s remaster of the first two Tony Hawk Pro Skater games is heading to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch, Activision announced today. Unfortunately, those looking to upgrade their existing copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 to the next-gen version will need to shell out an extra $10.
The PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game come out March 26 and will run in native 4K at 60FPS (except on Series S, where the game will be limited to 1440p upscaled to 4K), with the option of running at 120FPS in 1080p. The game will also make use of haptic feedback and spatialized audio on the PS5 version. Save data can be transferred within the same family of consoles as well. The Switch version, meanwhile, doesn’t have a release date yet, and is just expected to arrive sometime before the end of 2021.
Unlike many other recent games that have received next-gen upgrades, Tony Hawk won’t be free. Instead, players who already own the game on PS4 or Xbox One, but only the base version, will need to pay an additional $10 to upgrade to the “Cross-Gen Deluxe Bundle.”
Here’s Activision explaining this in its own words:
Digital players can upgrade to the Cross-Gen Deluxe Bundle with all the added features for an additional $10 SRP. The upgrade includes access to the secret skater Ripper (a.k.a. the infamous Powell-Peralta mascot), retro gear for Create-A-Skater mode, and retro skins for Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero and Rodney Mullen. Additionally, Activision Blizzard, Inc. is giving fans who already own the digital deluxe version of the game on PlayStation® 4 and Xbox One a next-gen upgrade at no cost (except in Japan) on March 26.
The deluxe bundle is currently priced at $50 and gives players access to bonus cosmetics, while the base version is priced at $40. It’s unclear what’s so special about the deluxe bundle when moving between console generations, or if the price increase is instead part of Activision’s general policy of charging more for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of games, as it did last fall with the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
At least there’s an option to pay a little extra to upgrade. Control still doesn’t even have that. Maybe Sony can make the entire issue moot for PS5 owners by simply making the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 deluxe bundle a PS Plus game at some point, as it did with Remedy’s shooter.
Update - 12:01 p.m. ET, 2/23/21: But wait, there’s more! As commenters have pointed out, Activision’s upgrade fine print also makes a distinction between physical and digital copies of the game on Xbox One. While digital owners can pay the $10 to upgrade to the Series X/S version, owners of the physical disc can’t. “Please note: The upgrade offer is not available with physical versions of the game on Xbox One,” Activision writes.
We’ve reached out to Activision and Microsoft for an explanation.