Gaming
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is joining Xbox Game Pass on July 21, 2026 — and if you somehow slept on the 2020 remaster, this is the best possible excuse to finally play it. Available on cloud, console, and PC across Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass, it’s a drop that genuinely matters.
What You’re Getting on July 21
The remaster packages both Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 (1999) and THPS2 (2000) into a single rebuilt product developed by Vicarious Visions and later handed to Iron Galaxy. Every original pro skater is in there — Hawk, Bucky Lasek, Kareem Campbell, Elissa Steamer, the full roster — alongside every classic level rebuilt in HD. Warehouse, School II, Hangar, Marseille, and yes, the Venice Beach downhill that still causes arguments about optimal run lines.
Beyond faithful recreation, the remaster adds expanded skater customization, a robust create-a-skater system that actually holds up by modern standards, and online multiplayer. The core trick system — the manual chains, the reverts, the lip tricks that define why this series still gets referenced when people talk about what responsive skateboarding games should feel like — is all intact. Vicarious Visions didn’t try to reinvent it; they preserved it and turned up the resolution.
Previously, THPS 1+2 sold separately at around $39.99. Getting it included in Game Pass is a straightforward win for subscribers who haven’t picked it up.
Why the 2020 Remaster Still Holds Up
Remasters earn skepticism. Most of them smooth out the visuals and call it done, leaving the underlying mechanics feeling dated or worse — retroactively misremembered. THPS 1+2 is one of the rare exceptions, and it comes down to a few things that Vicarious Visions got exactly right.
First: the physics are untouched where it counts. The float on a 900, the momentum you build grinding a downhill rail, the exact window to manual into a kickflip — it all reads the same as 1999 and 2000. That’s not easy to preserve through an engine rebuild, and it’s the reason the community received this remaster so well.
Second: the soundtrack. The original THPS games helped define a generation of licensed video game music, pairing the sport with tracks from Rage Against the Machine, Dead Kennedys, Primus, and Goldfinger’s “Superman” — a song that, at this point, is practically inseparable from the image of a pixelated skater grinding a handrail. The remaster keeps the core of that lineup intact, which matters more than people who didn’t grow up with it might realize. It’s not background music; it’s structural to how these games feel.
Third: the visual upgrade is clean without being overcorrected. Levels are recognizable, not reimagined. If you played the originals on PS1 or N64, the remaster feels like the version your memory already invented — sharper edges, better lighting, but the same spatial logic you memorized.
For players who never touched the originals, it’s an approachable entry point to a genre that largely doesn’t exist anymore at this quality level. For veterans, it’s the games you remember, running well on modern hardware. If you want to set up a proper session, our guide to budget gaming monitors under $200 covers solid screen options for exactly this kind of fast-twitch gameplay — and pairing it with the right gaming chair for under $200 makes long combo-chasing sessions a lot more comfortable.
What Else Drops July 21
THPS 1+2 isn’t the only notable Game Pass addition hitting on the 21st. Palworld 1.0 — the survival-crafting creature-collector that broke Steam records in early 2024 — also joins the library the same day, now in its full release version. The Planet Crafter, a terraforming survival game with a strong community following, rounds out the trio. Earlier in July, Gears of War: Reloaded joined the lineup as well.
It’s a solid month for the service overall, but THPS 1+2 is the standout for anyone who cares about the skateboarding genre or just wants to understand why those two games defined an entire aesthetic era of gaming. July 21 is the date to mark.
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