TheTony Hawkfranchise has seen the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
It’s easy to look back at the debut game in the franchise and still think it’s the best. It was an excellent combination of addictive, accessible gameplay with a killer soundtrack.
you may’t ignore the series' growth with the sequels, though. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 and 3 both offered a lot of improvements, most notably the introduction of the revert in Tony Hawk 3.
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There’s no denying that as time went on, the series started to slowly but surely decline in quality. There are some dramatic drop-offs in the “mainline” games, not just the spin-offs or handheld titles.
2020’sTony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2was an incredible remaster of some of the best sports games ever made, recapturing the magic that makes these games so beloved.Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4islooking to be more of the same.
What about the rest of the franchise, though? Are some of these games as bad as we remember, or have they aged better than anticipated? Let’s take a trip down memory lane and review every Tony Hawk game, ranked from worst to best.
We’ll be skipping remasters and mobile releases. Before you ask, the only good game that falls into this category is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2.
14Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5
The return of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater moniker with 2015’sTony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5was a big deal.
After over a decade of new ideas, evolutions, and venturing off your skateboard, THPS5 promised to be a return to the franchise’s roots and glory days. Sadly, it’s a promise the game didn’t keep.
Absolutely nothing works here. The graphics are a disgrace, the gameplay has little to nothing in common with the Tony Hawk games, and it’s a technical mess.
I get that there was a new development team here, but Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 also had a different dev team, and they delivered in every aspect. There’s no excuse for the mess that is THPS5, and it’s not worth going back for at all.
13Tony Hawk: Motion
What The Heck Were They Thinking?
Buckle up, because it’s not getting better for a while.
As Nintendo saw tremendous success with unique control schemes, third-party developers wanted to capitalize on the fad too. The Tony Hawk franchise is no stranger to this, with many people remembering the disaster that was Tony Hawk: Ride. We’ll talk more about that here in a bit, but for now, let’s bring up an even worse title: the Nintendo DS' Tony Hawk: Motion.
The last thing Tony Hawk needed was motion controls. That’s what we have here, though. The game is handled through its Motion Pack on the Nintendo DS. You know, the system that’stotallyknown for motion controls.
I have no idea why this game exists, especially since a Nintendo console that natively supports motion controls was released two years prior.
12Tony Hawk: Ride
Wanna Take You For A Ride
Tony Hawk: Ride
This is no Top Skater, no matter how much it wishes it were.
If Activision truly wanted a motion-controlled Tony Hawk game, you’d figure it would be the franchise’s debut on Nintendo Wii. Yet, for some reason, a new skateboard peripheral was introduced even though the Wii’s own board accessory was a disaster in its own right.
Wait, I’m being told that this thing was released for the Xbox 360 and PS3? What the heck are we doing here? Who asked for this, other than executives chasing flash-in-the-pan trends?
11Tony Hawk: Shred
The Sequel No One Asked For
Tony Hawk: Shred
Wait, they made a sequel to Tony Hawk: Ride? They did, but the less said aboutTony Hawk: Shred, the better, if we’re being honest.
On the plus side, itisa better game than Ride. To be fair, that’s like saying eating a steak from a premium steakhouse is better than a steak from IHOP.
There are only two redeeming factors here. First is the fact that there’s snowboarding, so that’s a win in this former winter sports enthusiast’s heart. Second, if you already owned the board, you didn’t have to pay over $100 for this awful game.
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10Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam
Tony Hawk’s Pro Snowboarder
Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam
When Downhill Jam was released in 2006, it was an interesting time in the gaming world. The next gen consoles (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) saw the much better Project 8. The PS2, Nintendo Wii, and Nintendo DS, however, saw the far worse Downhill Jam.
It’s a unique game in the Tony Hawk franchise. Rather than skating through parks and various locations, it has far more in common with the SSX franchise. You’re racing against other skaters as you careen down massive hills. This sounds fun, yes, but that’s not what Tony Hawk is all about.
The biggest issue with Downhill Jam is that it feels like a game strictly made for outdated systems and hardware, designed to extract as much money as possible from the consumer base.
There was no chance that Project 8 would run smoothly on a PS2, Wii, or DS. Instead of just ignoring those consoles, Activision made the call to throw them a bone. A rotten, disappointing bone better left ignored.
9Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground
The Final Neversoft Game
Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground
In 2007, Neversoft had something to prove.
The iconic developer was starting to lose some of their luster. The Tony Hawk franchise was slowly losing popularity in the post-THUG world. EA’s Skate was also giving fans a new, arguably superior, way to play a skateboarding game.
It’s ironic that this was the death knell for Neversoft and a major turning point in the Tony Hawk franchise. Proving Ground is a shell of the best Tony Hawk games, a shallow experience that fails to innovate over its successors.
It makes you wonder if the Tony Hawk franchise should have been shelved sooner. Every Tony Hawk game had some sort of gimmick for the next eight years. It’s important to realize when a franchise needs to rest, and if you were still on the fence after Project 8, you couldn’t ignore it anymore.
8Tony Hawk’s Project 8
The Beginning Of The End
Tony Hawk’s Project 8
Project 8 serves as a soft reboot for the franchise, bringing the gameplay back to its roots and eschewing the over-the-top presentation that had existed since Tony Hawk’s Underground.
The title serves two purposes: first, this is the eighth game in the franchise, and it also hints at the game’s narrative. Your goal is to become one of the best eight skaters in the world.
Its narrative is simple and helps keep the gameplay moving forward in a satisfying manner. It builds upon the original basis of obtaining high scores and completing objectives, only doing an excellent job of raising the stakes.
Where Project 8 stumbles, though, is the gameplay. There’s so much to see and do, but it’s a textbook example of quantity over quality. The game failed to carry over features from previous games in the franchise, resulting in a game that fails to capitalize on what made its predecessors so enjoyable.
7Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
American Idiot
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
What if you could play through one huge level for an entire Tony Hawk game?
While those ambitious expectations were never fully realized, American Wasteland is a far better game than you may remember. It’s more focused than THUG2 while sharing many similarities to the original Underground.
Gameplay also returned to its roots, focusing less on the extracurricular activities and more on the actual skateboarding. It’s a very underrated game in the Tony Hawk franchise, but ironically, it felt like it was missing something.
Yes, it’s possibly because the core gameplay feels unchanged and too similar to past entries. There’s also a personality and charisma vacuum compared to Tony Hawk’s Underground 2. I just wish Neversoft was willing to try something more exciting here. Though, then again, every time they did that, I liked the games less and less.
6Tony Hawk’s Underground
Leaving The Board Behind
Tony Hawk’s Underground
Call me a purist, but here is where the hot takes may begin in my ranking of every Tony Hawk game.
The more the game became less about arcade-style skateboarding and more about a skateboarding sandbox is when they started to lose me.
That’s not to say that Underground is a bad game. Far from it, in fact. If you’re looking for bad Tony Hawk games, we’ve already talked about plenty of those. Plus, Eric Sparrow is one of the best video game villains of all time.
My biggest issue with the Underground games is that they very much feel like a product of their time. It looks to capture the magic of the “create a player” career mode in sports games along with the growing popularity of the MTV series Jackass, though that’s far more obvious in its successor.
5Tony Hawk’s Underground 2
Viva La Bam
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2
If you felt like the only thing missing from Tony Hawk’s Underground was a Jackass-style conflict between Tony Hawk and Bam Margera, you’re in luck. That’s the main focus of Tony Hawk’s Underground 2.
Gone is the more serious narrative of making it big as a skater that the predecessor saw. Instead, this is an over-the-top love letter to the MTV skater culture that was far more popular than you may remember.
What puts THUG 2 over the top, though, was how well it captures the essence of the original titles. It’s an excellent mix of skateboarding fun that oozes so much personality that you may’t help but be impressed.
Does this hold up well in 2025? It depends on who you ask, but the biggest thing that THUG 2 has going for it is how it’s a true homage to the culture, not a shameless cash grab.
