FAQ

Tony Hawk's Underground 2 for PC, running natively on Windows, macOS and Linux, with its online mode switched back on.

GameSpy shut down in 2014 and took THUG2's online play with it. The menus never left, so the patch plugs them into a new server: lobbies and chat, homies, the pager, hosted games and ranked Online Stats. On top of that come the things a 2004 PC game never had: keyboard and gamepad settings, any resolution, a 120 fps cap and an optional remaster.

Yes. The patch is a small download: a new executable for your system and a handful of script files. The levels, skaters, music and movies come from the THUG2 PC install you already own. No copy, no skating.

Check the attic. Check your cousin's attic.

Completely: no ads, no store, no subscription. It's an independent project, not affiliated with Activision, Neversoft or GameSpy. The Terms have the fine print.

No. The aim is THUG2 the way it played in 2004. When the changelog mentions aerial flips, the Natas spin or revert, those are THUG2's own moves that the port was missing, now put back.

Every level loads and plays, and the menus, Training, saves and online play are in. Still being ported: Focus mode, tagging, throwing objects and a few gaps in the story's scripts. Fixes land as new patches, listed in the changelog.

1. Open the folder of your THUG2 PC install, the one with THUG2.exe and Data.
2. Unzip the patch for your system into it and replace the files when asked.
3. Run THUG2.exe (THUG2 on macOS and Linux).

Installed under Program Files? Copy the folder somewhere you can write to first, like Documents: the game keeps its settings and saves right next to itself. The whole walk-through is on the main page.

• Windows: 64-bit Windows 10 or later, a graphics card with OpenGL 3.3.
• macOS: macOS 11 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel (one universal build).
• Linux: 64-bit, glibc 2.35 or later (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 36), OpenGL 3.3, and libcurl for online play.

The builds aren't code-signed, so the system asks once. On Windows, SmartScreen: More info, then Run anyway. On macOS: System Settings › Privacy & Security › Open Anyway, or in Terminal xattr -d com.apple.quarantine THUG2.

Only download the patch from this site; the SHA-256 checksums are published next to it.

That's Finder's way. Unzip into your game folder from Terminal instead, so the files land on top of the old ones:

unzip -o ~/Downloads/THUG2-0.3_patch_macos.zip -d ~/Games/THUG2

Use the zip name you downloaded and the path of your own game folder.

Next to the game: saves in the save folder, settings in config.ini. Your old THUG2 PC saves load as they are, story progress and custom skater included. Back the folder up like it's your best combo.

Unzip the newer patch over the old one, same as the first time. Your settings and saves stay put. Each patch's changes are in the changelog.

The keyboard layout is the retail PC one: W A S D to move, the numpad for tricks (KP2 ollie, KP4 flip, KP6 grab, KP8 grind, KP7 and KP9 to spin), P to change the camera, and Enter for the chat online.

There's a second key for most actions too (Space ollie, G flip, H grab, J grind). Rebind anything in Game Options › Keyboard, two keys per action. No numpad? Rebind, or plug in a pad.

Yes. Plug it in any time: rumble works, the button hints in the menus change to match whatever you touched last, and every button can be rebound in Game Options › Gamepad. Keyboard and pad work at the same time.

Game Options › Screen: window or fullscreen, any resolution, and a 60 or 120 fps cap (120 is the default). It's saved in config.ini under [Screen].

Yes, all of it. Game Options › Graphics has one master switch for the remaster layer, a separate one for motion blur, and a switch for each part: skater shadow, light, bloom, tone mapping, color grade, vignette, anti-aliasing, sharper textures and field of view. With the master switch off the game draws the way it did in 2004. If it runs too slowly on an older graphics card, that's the first place to look.

On the Wheel of Looogie, pick Multiplayer › Online Play, choose a skater and hit Ready. The game fetches the message of the day, asks you to make a profile the first time (an email and a password, like GameSpy did) and drops you in the lobby list. Pick a region, host a game or join one.

To play, no: you can drop in as a guest. Homies, the pager and Online Stats need a profile. The profile you made in the game is the same one that logs in on this site, top left.

On this site choose Log in, then Forgot password?. Six numbers come to your email, and you set the new password in the same dialog. It has to be 8 to 10 characters the game's keyboard can type.

North America, Europe, Asia / Oceania and South America, plus a Beginners room for ratings up to 1200. Inside a lobby the Actions menu has the user list, games, the pager and chat. Keep the chat skate-friendly.

No. Before a join the server tells each side where the other one is, and both send a few UDP packets to each other, which opens the way through most home routers. Hosting usually just works.

Yes. Windows, macOS and Linux players share the same lobbies and games: a Mac can host, a PC can join.

Pick a player in the User List to add them as a homie. The Homie List shows where they are and what they're doing; pick one to send a message. Messages go to a homie who's online right now and aren't stored, so an offline homie won't get them, as with GameSpy.

The retail text for a dropped session: the server restarted or your connection went away for a while. Press OK, then Ready again. The cables are fine; GameSpy is the one that's gone.

A game counts when all of these are true:

• it's played on one of the 15 ranked levels: Training, Boston, Barcelona, Berlin, Australia, New Orleans, Skatopia, Pro Skater, The Triangle, School, Philly, Downhill Jam, Los Angeles, Canada or Airport;
• no cheats are on (cheats are fun, but those games don't count);
• every player confirms they're in it, and the players have a profile (guests don't get stats).

When the game ends, the host reports the final scores to the server.

Your best score and your best combo on each level, and the best Graffiti scores from 30 second games (that board is only on the website). The boards show them all time and this month (Recent), and there's a Players list with the top-rated skaters.

Rating is a sum of three parts, 3500 at most:

So the way up is to play with others and to chase the top score and the top combo on as many levels as you can.

Your total rating is shown as a rank from 0 to 10, drawn as the deck sprites from the game. The deck fills up as the rating climbs, on your profile, in the game and in the Decks view of Online Stats. Rank 10 is a blue deck.

Nobody said it'd be easy.

On the website: the Online Stats boards (every player's name links to a public page with their bests), and your own profile from the chip top left, with your best score, combo and graffiti on each level. In the game: Personal Stats.

The game reads your Personal Stats at login, as in retail, so log in again to refresh them. If a game didn't land on the boards, check that it was one of the 15 levels, that cheats were off and that you weren't playing as a guest.

On Windows, when THUG2 crashes it writes THUG2-crash.txt into the game folder, next to THUG2.exe. It's a plain text file you can open in Notepad. It holds the address where the game stopped, the processor registers, the call stack as offsets into THUG2.exe and the name of the script that was running. There's nothing personal in it, no account details and none of your files. That's what lets the crash be found and fixed.

Please send it. Email it to [email protected] with:

• the file itself, attached;
• the patch version (it's in the zip's name, and on this site);
• the level and mode, and what you were doing a moment before;
• your system and graphics card.

The next crash overwrites the file, so copy it somewhere safe before you play on. Crashes that come with a file are the ones that get fixed first.

When a script or the engine hits something it didn't expect, the game keeps going and notes it in THUG2-assert.txt, also in the game folder, each message once. If a level, a goal or a menu acts strange, attach that file to your email at [email protected], with the level or goal name.

THUG2 needs a graphics card and driver with OpenGL 3.3, so update the driver first. Check that you unzipped the patch into the folder with THUG2.exe and Data and replaced the files. If it still won't start, write to [email protected] with your system, your graphics card and what you see.

Email [email protected]. The more it knows (system, patch version, level, what you pressed, what happened), the faster it's fixed. Screenshots help a lot. "It doesn't work" is a mystery novel nobody can finish.