Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 Devs Say They’re Investigating Guitar Hero Trash Can Easter Egg

Presumably in response to that last part, Iron Galaxy jumped into the replies to say, “We have the utmost respect for anyone who makes games, we’re investigating how that got in there in the first place.” They go on to thank the community for bringing it up, and state that “we’ll be removing that from the environment art in the next update.”

Neversoft was the original studio behind the Tony Hawk series. It was shut down in 2014 following an Activision decision to merge the studio with Call of Duty developer team Infinity Ward. This merger came after Neversoft shifted towards developing Guitar Hero games under Activision. By the time the studio shut down, it hadn’t made a Tony Hawk game for seven years. Studio developers at the time said goodbye by setting an eyeball on fire, in reference to their iconic logo. 

Iron Galaxy’s statement has sparked quite a bit of chatter on the same Reddit post, with some users claiming that they like the Easter egg, or at least don’t think it needs removal, and others considering it disrespectful towards Neversoft. Notably, despite the dev team’s quickness to address it, this kind of tongue-in-cheek joke isn’t surprising in the larger context of the Tony Hawk series. The games are steeped in the edgy and counterculture history of skateboarding. While this could be inferred by taking a look at the newest game’s soundtrack of rockers and rappers alone, the difficult-to-avoid advertisements for this game also played with this aesthetic. Taking a pretty light jab at a topic isn’t out of place. 

Also, while the original Reddit post assumes this jab is aimed at Neversoft, it’s pointed out that this could be aimed at Activision, given the acclaimed studio’s closure happened under its watch. Frankly, it might be presumptuous to even call this a jab at all. The studio’s response does not offer much of an explanation, instead reading as surprise at seeing the Easter Egg at all.