HOPE — Hills, Ollies, Pavement, Expression

A Windows launcher and PC-focused community update built on Skate3Recomp by mchughalex. Made with heart for the Skate 3 community, HOPE helps you organize your careers, customize your session, and get back to finding and filming your next line.

Download HOPE · Report a bug · Setup and platform details

Bring your own Skate 3 Xbox 360 ISO. This repository provides no retail game files or ISO download links. Gameplay backgrounds must come from your own game files or screenshots.

Download HOPE v0.6.5

HOPE v0.6.5 is the latest community release. Choose your package under Assets on the release page. Each archive has a SHA-256 checksum and third-party notices.

Platform	Package	Requirements and included features
Windows x64	.zip	Windows 10/11 x64. HOPE launcher + native game; launcher .NET runtime bundled.
Linux x64 — experimental	.tar.gz	Ubuntu 24.04 or compatible, GTK3, Vulkan drivers and curl. Native game only; no HOPE launcher.
macOS Apple Silicon — experimental	.tar.gz	macOS 15+. Native game + MoltenVK; no HOPE launcher. Ad-hoc signed, not notarized; Intel Macs unsupported.

Linux and macOS do not include Windows launcher features such as career/save management, launcher mod import or launcher DLC import. See installation instructions and platform limits.

The Windows launcher 0.6.5 accompanies game 2.0.0.41-dev.ge7ca86e, including player-owned DLC import, career-page refresh fixes and safer configuration recovery. The native game includes the clothing capture/recovery correction. HOPE remains under active development; a community release does not establish complete gameplay compatibility. Install into a new writable folder and preserve your existing career.

HOPE's WPF launcher targets Windows. Linux x64 and macOS arm64 native builds passed compilation and isolated regression checks; live gameplay remains unverified. The Mac preview targets Apple Silicon/macOS 15+ and is ad-hoc signed, not notarized. See platform/package limits, current status, changelog, and four-phase roadmap.

What HOPE adds

• Launcher: mouse, keyboard and XInput navigation, rounded panels, HD backgrounds, a custom executable/window icon, and visible original-creator credits.
• Careers and saves: separate portable careers, save browsing, confirmed removal with recovery copies, and settings reset/restore. Editing is blocked while Skate 3 is running.
• DLC: Game setup imports player-owned Skate 3 Xbox 360 single-file STFS packages into a shared library. Imports are queued for native installation next launch, with header checks and duplicate protection. See DLC setup and limits.
• PC settings: fullscreen, VSync, frame caps, renderer selection, resolution scale, MSAA, ambient occlusion, distance fog/haze, bloom and light shafts. Advanced controls expose reflections, shadow quality/softness, AO radius/strength, mipmaps, decals, FOV and world/LOD distances. Availability depends on the renderer.
• Mods: No Intro Videos, Wide Streets, Neon Crowd, Pocket Crowd and Giant Crowd; imported allowlisted settings manifests. Imported mods start disabled. Crowd styles conflict and remain cosmetic experiments. See mod format and limits.
• Particles: an original soft dust sprite with transparent blending. The hotfix separates particles from clothing, restores the original character shaders, and rejects garment-shaped draws. Effects remain experimental.
• Diagnostics: optional bounded F8 timing captures and an analyzer. These measure guest-swap cadence, not displayed FPS or GPU time. No measured performance gain or recommended performance preset is claimed.

Start playing on Windows

For a fresh download:

1. Extract the Windows release into a new writable folder, then open HOPE.exe.
2. Use Game setup to choose your own ISO or an extracted game folder containing default.xex.
3. Let game installation/title-update setup finish, then choose Play.
4. Set preferences in Graphics before launching. Use the in-game PC settings for supported live changes.

The downloadable Windows package bundles the launcher runtime. Framework-dependent source builds require the .NET 8 Windows Desktop runtime, and building the launcher requires the .NET 8 SDK. Keep the extracted support files beside HOPE.exe, skate3.exe, and the matching runtime DLL.

Input	Action
Controller Start/Menu	Original Skate 3 menu: Restart, Trick Book, map and replay
Escape or RB + Start	Separate HOPE PC settings
F1	Alternate PC settings shortcut
F8	Start/save an optional timing capture

Return to HOPE Launcher closes the game session; finish saving first. It does not return to Skate 3's title screen. The PC overlay does not pause simulation.

Known issues and unfinished work

• The original intermittent blank difficulty screen after difficulty/camera selection remains open. The report involves a controller.
• A true return to Skate 3's title screen and rebuilding its original menu remain unfinished. Some game-authored console wording remains.
• The shirt still detached with particles disabled on the previous build. Game 2.0.0.41 corrects cloth-mode classification, stale pose recovery and mode-dependent geometry reuse. The affected player's movement retest is still needed. See clothing correction.
• Particle effect textures/colors, larger or atlas-mapped effects, individual quad sorting and softened depth intersections remain incomplete. The dust fallback is not every original effect.
• Crowd appearance, real controller navigation/reconnect, setup/save/load flows and long-session stability still need gameplay validation.
• Path tracing is unavailable. No iMMERSE Pro source was integrated. No verified playable beta-content pack or skeleton-pedestrian replacement is offered.

Build and develop

See Windows source build instructions. Clone this repository with its pinned HOPE SDK submodule; the SDK includes local compatibility and PC-overlay changes that are not published in the original creator's repository.

The launcher can be built separately:

dotnet build launcher/HOPE.Launcher.csproj -c Release -o out/hope-launcher

Launcher fixtures and offscreen previews use disposable data and start no game. Launcher 0.6.5 passed 164 fixture checks. Native release builds passed 39 clothing-state checks, 15 particle-isolation checks, and 9 texture checks each. These checks do not establish live gameplay correctness. See contributing and bug reports.

Files and recovery

Back up your existing installation and careers before changing versions. Extract the GitHub release separately; overwriting an existing folder is not a save migration. Windows program rollback copies created by the updater stay in HOPE/updates.

Close both launcher and game before applying an update. The updater verifies program hashes and backs up existing program files; it does not reset career progress or settings. When running an archived installer, pass the current HOPE folder explicitly as -Target.

Credits

Find your spot. Film your line. Share your clips with #HOPESkate3 and help give the community more Skate 3 to watch.

• mchughalex / Skate3Recomp: original recompilation, native renderer and project foundation.
• ReXGlue SDK and the Skate-specific SDK fork.
• Xenia: Xbox 360 research and tooling.
• EA Black Box / Electronic Arts: original Skate 3 game.

HOPE is an unofficial community update. Existing source notices and original creator credits remain intact. The original upstream documentation is preserved separately.