It’s brilliant in capturing the essence of a trick, but Skater XL can’t stick the landing when it comes to every other element that turns a good skateboarding game into an enduring legend for the ages.

Here’s a new map to gawk at, which may just be Valhalla for anyone looking to play some two-wheeled board games: The Big Ramp. That’s it, that’s the story right there. A massive collection of ramps and half-pipes, in the middle of the desert. Perfection.

Developed by Crea-Ture Studios, Session has its own brand of gnarly nollies and mondo manuals to master, provided that you can get to grips with its tricky controls. Those players who have built up some significant muscle memory in their digits need to prepare to start back at square one however, as Session is going to rewrite the rulebook on its own physics in a major overhaul.

In the year of our lord Rodney Mullen that is 2019, skateboarding will live again next month when Session does a gnarly nosegrind into Steam’s Early Access. A spiritual successor to Skate in the controls department, Session will feature “true stance-stick controls” that allow you to access each of the appendages that you use to control your falling (or walk, as most call it) as you pull off some rad tricks around New York City brah.

In August 1999, Activision and Neversoft released Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and a genre went mainstream. While THPS may not have been the first skateboarding game on the market, it was still the very best that a burgeoning genre could offer.

Skateboarding games aren’t entirely dead, but they exist in a genre that’s a shadow of its former self. Session wants to fill that gap. It’s a new project from developer Crea-Ture Studios, that aims to restore skateboarding back to its roots on the streets.

Tony Hawk stole hours of our time back in the day, but will his new skating game have just as much appeal, or is it too little, too late?

The legendary skateboarder talks about the unique challenges when faced with designing a game that is not a first-person shooter in todays environment.