By Joey Carr on September 17, 2025 at 10:06AM PDT
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Skate has always been one of the most enjoyable yet challenging skateboarding franchises on the market. While the mechanics and gameplay seem simple at first glance, it can be extremely difficult for new players to chain tricks together or even get from point A to point B without falling off their boards more than a few times. The newest Skate sequel is out now in early access, and while more content is coming in the future, there’s a healthy heap of things to do in the world of San Vansterdam.
However, you might find it challenging to engage with that content if you’re struggling to grind a simple rail or perform a flick trick consistently. To aid you in your Skate journey, we have compiled a list of seven beginner tips to help get you started in your first few hours. The tips are in no particular order.
Easily one of the most important parts of your early Skate career is finding the settings that work for you. Skate offers three different control presets, which change how you perform tricks and do other mechanics, along with a flurry of other settings and sensitivities. While you can just go with the default settings the game gives you and pick the easiest preset, that’s not going to be the optimal route to mastering Skate’s mechanics.
We have put together a guide that goes over the best Skate settings, so check that out if you’re finding it hard to navigate the settings menu. However, you can also play for a couple of hours and come back to the settings menu so you have a better idea of what you’d like to change.
Your control preset and flick-it sensitivity are the two settings you want to dial in as quickly as possible, though.
Rip Chips are one of two currencies you can earn in Skate. Unlike the other currency, San Van Bucks, Rip Chips can be earned strictly through gameplay. This means you don’t have to spend a penny of your own money to acquire the currency.
In Skate, Rip Chips are used to open boxes that correlate with one of the available neighborhood districts in San Vansterdam. You can view the neighborhoods and their regions by zooming out on the world map. In each neighborhood, you can complete challenges, which earn you Rip Chips as a reward. You can then spend your Rip Chips by opening boxes that are found near the bottom of the in-game shop page.
You’ll need more and more Rip Chips to unlock each subsequent box, but the higher-tier boxes reward you with rarer cosmetics. Aside from buying San Van Bucks and purchasing items from the shop, this is the only way to acquire cosmetics for your character in Skate. So after you complete a challenge, make sure to head over to the shop and see if you have enough Rip Chips for a new box.
For more on earning and spending in San Vansterdam, here’s how to make money in Skate and get free rewards.
Session markers are a staple feature in Skate, and they allow you to set a respawn point for yourself anywhere on the map. By placing a session marker, which is done by holding “Up” on the D-Pad at a specific location, you make it so you can return to that exact point anytime you want until you place a new session marker.
The main advantage of placing a session marker is using it to practice tricks. As you can see in the screenshot above, we placed a session marker at the very top of this ramp. This allows us to go down the ramp, practice a trick, and then immediately teleport back to the same spot atop the ramp after the trick ends or a wipeout occurs. You can use session markers in other ways, too, but you don’t want to forget to use them, as they can really speed up your practice in Skate.
It might sound strange in a skateboarding game, but there’s a fast travel system in Skate that you can use to get around the map quickly. While some players might prefer to simply ride their board to each destination they want to go, you’re also able to unlock fast travel points all across the map to instantly reach a new location.
Most of these fast travel points need to be unlocked by leveling up in Skate. You’ll also have to visit each neighborhood on the map to unlock all of the available points, which are usually at bus stops and other similar spots. It’s totally up to you whether to use fast travel or not, but it can be a decent time-saver if you’re just trying to complete a mission that’s far away.
While the actual skateboarding mechanics are great in Skate, the movement of your character might be even better. Players have already found ways to break regular movement, which you’re free to take advantage of if you want. However, one intended movement mechanic in Skate is the parkour system, which allows your character to climb up buildings, ramps, and other objects.
There are set parkour locations across San Vansterdam, which are sometimes the only way to reach a ramp or jumping off point for a trick. For the most part, though, your character can climb on most objects, so if you need to get to a certain spot but can’t do it on your board, hop off and try to parkour your way there instead of taking the long way around.
The Skatepedia is an underrated tool at your disposal in Skate. You can access the Skatepedia by going to the main menu, either before or after entering a lobby, and it holds information like the full Skate trick list. This is the best way to learn how to do new tricks that you didn’t even think were possible, or refresh your memory on how to do a trick.
There are tabs for simple grind tricks as well as tabs for grab tricks and off-board movement mechanics. You can also see a dictionary for all of the terminology used in Skate, which can come in handy if you see a term that throws you for a loop.
Even though Skate is still in early access, there’s a decent chunk of content to progress through. Missions make up a majority of this content, and they’re spread out across the different neighborhoods in San Vansterdam. As you complete missions, you’ll unlock new fast travel points, earn Rip Chips, and learn new mechanics in Skate.
You’ll always have one mission available to complete during the early portion of the game, and you can track them by going to the “Missions” tab from the main menu. Aside from being a form of progression in Skate, missions are just a good way to understand more of the game and unlock additional content.

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