Skating through a hi-def recreation of the late-1990s shopping mall in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 2 is, uh, strange. Everything is right where you left it 20 years ago: the smash-able glass, the empty storefronts, the bizarre nouveau-art display that for so long seemed like the epitome of consumerist architecture. And despite the fact that the video game franchise has felt beyond dead, it's all here in glorious, remastered detail. Yet none of that is what makes it feel odd. What's peculiar about Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 2 is its doubled nostalgia: nostalgia for the time when I obsessed over the original games, for that world, and also for the world itself, the place that existed before Covid-19 quarantines and pandemic isolation.

When skateboarding video game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater arrived on the PlayStation in 1999, no one could have expected the cultural impact it would have or how much muscle memory it would ingrain into dedicated fans. It was an enormous hit with skaters and non-skaters alike, helping to usher in a more-mainstream acceptance of skateboarding culture, define a new video game genre and teach tens of thousands the words to Motörhead's "Ace of Spades." Twenty-one years after the release of the first game, publisher Activision and developer Vicarious Visions will release Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 2, a ground-up remaster of the first two games, on Sept. 4, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. And while it sticks very closely to its source, the new game feels like it belongs in 2020, with a greater focus on representation and a firm grounding in that angsty skate culture aesthetic. Tony Hawk himself couldn't be more excited about the release. "You don't understand how many people ask me about [Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2]," Hawk told TIME.