Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 is crashing on Xbox Series X and S, here's a possible fix / workaround

What you need to know

• Activision has broken Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 for users who upgraded to next-gen.
• Many users are reporting crashes, but the game seems to work in offline mode, indicating some kind of server problem.

Update March 28, 2021: In our own testing, it seems you can "fix" this by uninstalling the next-gen "upgrade" patch and reverting back to the Xbox One version of the game. To do this, press the hamburger (three-lines) button on your controller with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 selected, then go to Manage game and add-ons. From here, select the upgrade patch and remove it. You may also need to uninstall the THPS1+2 "Xbox Series X|S" client, and re-download the other non-Xbox Series X|S client instead. This is a temporary work around while we wait to see if Activision fixes the Xbox Series S/X version, which is a separate client entirely.

When Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War launched last year, the game had an intriguing next-gen omission that set the game apart from its peers launching across Xbox One and Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X consoles.

Instead of using Microsoft's Smart Delivery content management system, which allows developers to ship resolution and frame rate upgrades to Xbox One games running on new-gen hardware, Activision opts for its own "upgrade patches" in order to nickel and dime console players out of resolution and frame rates that are a given on PC.

In any case, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War was broken for several weeks, as a result of Activision not using Smart Delivery. If you had the non-upgraded version of Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, the game would crash relentlessly on Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X, until you purchased the upgrade pack and re-downloaded the entire game. Activision's methodology for "cross-gen upgrades" seems to have now claimed another victim in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2.

Users who purchased the $10 upgrade patch have reported widespread crashing (via Pure Xbox), although some have reported that playing the game in offline mode seems to work as a temporary workaround. The issues seem to arise when the game attempts to connect to Activision's servers, indicating that there may be some version mismatch shenanigans taking place.

It's a bit of a shame, since Vicarious Visions' faithful remake of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 is quite easily one of the best Xbox games out there. I'm low-key intrigued how Activision didn't learn from the problems it created with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, potentially as a result of not using Xbox's Smart Delivery feature. In any case, we'll be sure to update this article if and when Activision sorts it out.