Tony Hawk Shared Original THPS 'Trick Reference' Video and It's Pure Archival Gold

"We weren’t able to properly capture most of these during our problematic MoCap session so I decided to send videos in hopes that they could use these to animate from. It worked; many of these look exactly the same in our original games," Tony mentions in the caption. Tacking on, "Fun facts: I hadn’t yet made a Sack Tap when I sent this, and still haven’t done a proper Seat Belt."  

Like many, I grew up in what I consider the golden era of the THPS video game series. The original and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 just can't be topped as far as I'm concerned, which is why seeing this part of the process is so rad and fascinating. 

This dude is a machine and his bag of tricks is as deep as the ocean. One after another, he rifles off these difficult moves like the legend he is. So dialed. So casual. The fact that they were able to use these clips and properly mirror them into the game is just the cherry on top. How rad is that!? 

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater unarguably influenced an entire generation of skateboarders, and it introduced skateboarding to such a broader audience at the time all the same. A lot of work went into making those games so successful, but at the end of the day, it all funnels down into one thing: skateboarding. 

Whether you grew up with these games or not—maybe it was before your time or perhaps it was a bit too far after—we can all agree that if anyone had the power to make a game about skateboarding work, it was Tony. There's only one Birdman. And that's the way it will always be.