Tony Hawk apparently intervened to get Bam Margera into Pro Skater 3+4: 'No, you're gonna do it'

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 remake will nosegrind onto PC this summer, but when publisher Activision revealed the game's list of skaters returning to the overhauled duology, there was one notable omission. Bam Margera, famous for appearing in shows like Jackass and Viva La Bam as well as for his presence as a playable character in Tony Hawk, was the only skater missing from the original lineup of the two games.

Now though, it's been reported that Margera will appear in the remake, and moreover, that his addition is due to a last-minute demand by Tony Hawk himself.

The report comes from skating podcast The Nine Club, hosted by skating commentator and cinematographer Roger Bagley. Speaking on a livestream of the podcast appropriately named The Live Club (via VGC), Bagley explained how Margera's addition to the remake went down:

"The game was already done. Tony called up Activision and was like, 'Hey, we're putting Bam in the thing', and they were like, 'Hey, we can't'," Bagley explained. "He goes, 'No, you're gonna do it', and basically made them fly Bam back out there to get body-scanned and everything else, and get him back in the game."

Activision is yet to comment on this claim, or why it seemingly omitted Margera from the remake in the first instance. But Margera has faced numerous legal and personal issues in recent years. Having experienced long term struggles with alcoholism and substance abuse, Margera was fired from 2021's Jackass Forever for failing a drugs test according to his former costar Steve-O.

In 2023 Margera was arrested twice, once for domestic violence after allegedly kicking a woman, and once for punching and making death threats to his brother. In the latter instance, Margera went on the run for three days before surrendering to the police, and subsequently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, spending six months on probation.

If Margera was omitted from the remake, it would not be the smallest change developer Iron Galaxy is making to the overhauled games. As reported by Kotaku, the remake will replace the more open-ended career mode of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, which let players skate freely around maps between taking on objectives, with timed, run-based challenges similar to the first three games.

It's a controversial decision that has gone down poorly with a lot of fans of THPS 4. "Very disappointing to fans of THPS4 who were wanting to play the game as close to as they remembered," wrote user RockmanBN on reddit, while jayteeay questioned how two-minute runs would even be possible in the fourth game. "Honestly I have no idea how they're going to make this 2 minute run thing work—the maps in 4 are massive compared to 3 honestly."

We'll find out how the remake, Bam-less or otherwise, shapes up when it launched on July 11.