Former Xbox Live manager Dan McCulloch announces that he has officially joined the Skate 4 development team. EA confirmed that a new Skate game is in development last month, after years of demands from fans on social media for the company to make a new one.
In a tweet today, Xbox veteran Dan McCulloch confirmed that he has now joined the Skate 4 development team as a studio general manager. McCulloch said that he has been a fan of the Skate series "for over a decade" and is "honored to be part of that amazing community." The new Skate developer also told fans to "be on the lookout for more information coming in the future!"
McCulloch's announcement means that he is leaving Microsoft, a company that he had been with for 15 years. He has had several jobs at the company from program manager to senior producer on all first-party Kinect launch titles such as Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports, and from general manager of Microsoft development team Leap Experience Pioneers to the partner general manager of Xbox Live, the role he has just left.
It may seem like an odd time to leave, as Microsoft is preparing to launch the Xbox Series X and has events like the Xbox Games Showcase coming up. A tweet from Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that McCulloch is "realizing a dream of leading a team building a game" with this announcement.
McCulloch seems like a great hire for the Skate team. It has been confirmed that Skate 4 will have more community features and as an important part of a multiplayer gaming service, McCulloch may have some very good ideas on what those features should look like. McCulloch will have seen just how gamers are sharing and creating content and what features they want but haven't found in other games.
However, McCulloch's hiring suggests that it could be a long time until fans get to see anything more from the new Skate game. The game's announcement trailer didn't feature any gameplay footage and Skate 4 is only its unofficial name, one that has been given to it by fans. All that fans really have on are their own Skate 4 memes, published by fans asking EA to make the game. If the development team has only just found the person to lead it, the new information teased in McCulloch's tweet could be some time away.
Skate?is in development for unspecified platforms.
