Our next entry is a bit of a strange mystery overall, flagged up by Martin/Stadium64. Although Skateball appears widely available online, no known original physical copy with this version on tape or disk has ever been found.
GB64 and Lemon64 list Skateball as the US version of Skate Wars – though evidence suggests the game was just released under the title Skate Wars in both regions rather than Skateball. While Skateball was advertised and reviewed (notably in Zzap64 in October 1989) as a C64 title, it seemingly never launched under that name at that time. Instead, it appeared roughly a year later as Skate Wars, which was re-issued on various platforms.
Skateball oddly was released on other systems in the UK like Amstrad, Spectrum, and Atari ST, but likely never officially on the C64 from what we can see. The existing C64 cracks of Skateball that exist (some traced back to the scene group Radwar, who implemented the copy protection) suggest unofficial circulation.
Further digging, thanks to Gaz Spence, suggests the release history of Skateball is far messier than first thought. Magazine adverts and news items from late 1988 list the game as part of Ubi Soft’s Christmas line-up for multiple formats – including C64, Amiga, ST, PC and Amstrad, and C64 reviews did appear in 1989, implying review copies were circulated.
However, there is still no solid evidence of a commercial C64 release under the Skateball name, with the game seemingly resurfacing around 1990 as Skate Wars, which was released across the C64, Spectrum, Amstrad and Atari ST. Planned Amiga and PC versions appear not to have materialised at all, despite contemporary advertising and even PC screenshots.
Aside from a likely French-only Amstrad release in 1989, Skateball remains a title that appears to have existed largely in previews, reviews and unofficial circulation — reinforcing its status as a game that, in its original form, may never truly have been. Gaz suggests that perhaps the game was initially cancelled due to poor sales, and then resurrected as Skatewars to jump on the futuristic sports bandwagon being set by Speedball. Seems like a good possible shout?
Given the lack of a physical boxed release and missing originals despite UBIsoft’s prominence, the Skateball version of Skate Wars on the C64 may well be a game that wasn’t – in that form at least! We hope to learn more soon – but if you have a physical C64 copy of Skateball (and not Skate Wars), please do get in touch!
Contributions: Martin/Stadium64, Gamebase64, Gaz Spence
Supporting content
Available downloads
- Game_Skateball (zip)
Gallery
Update history
13/12/25 – Additional details about the timeline thanks to Gaz Spence.
Apologies Frank, but it seems that a French-only version of Skateball was released for the Amstrad in 1989, but it did not appear to have a ‘wider’ European / UK release at that time.
Thanks Gaz and sorry for the delay! Just updated the page with a summary of the details you’ve dug up – but I agree, it does seem a mess! Thanks so much for the investigational work!
The release history of this game is bonkers.
The first magazine reference I can see that relates to Skateball is from Page 15 of the November 1988 issue of C&VG, where a news feature mentions that the game is one of Ubi Soft’s Christmas line up and will be available on “all popular formats”. In the same issue on Page 24, there is an advert for the game which states it is available on C64, Amiga, ST, PC and Amstrad (no mention of Spectrum for some reason). It was then reviewed in a number of Spectrum and Atari magazines in the first part of 1989.
C64 reviews then appeared in the August 1989 issue of 64’er and the October 1989 issue of Zzap!
I cannot find any reviews relating to Skateball for the PC, Amiga or Amstrad.
Roll on to late 1990 and we find that the game re-emerges as Skatewars and it was released, it appears, as a full-price game (!) for the Spectrum, Commodore C64, Amstrad and Atari ST, being reviewed in Amstrad Action, ST Format, Your Sinclair and Sinclair user. It does not appear to have been released on the Amiga or PC.
The game would be rinsed out once again on Hit Squad in 1992 for the Spectrum, Amstrad and C64 but not sure about the Atari ST.
In summary:
1) It appears that the game was planned for the Amiga and PC but did not appear to materialise on those platforms as either Skateball or Skatewars. Note that the original C&VG advert actually includes a PC screenshot, so we know that at least work was started on that version.
2) There is no evidence that C64 or Amstrad versions of Skateball were released despite it looking like the C64 version was sent to magazines for review.
3) The game would eventually appear as Skatewars for Atari ST, Spectrum, Amstrad and C64.
My personal musings are that perhaps Ubi Soft decided to cancel the other platform releases of Skateball due to disappointing sales for the Atari ST and Spectrum, but then decided to release the game as ‘Skatewars’, trying to ride the futuristic sports wave created by the hype around Speedball 2, which was being heavily previewed from mid 1990.