Skate is locking a map area behind a paywall after promising no map areas would be locked behind paywalls: 'We will need to make changes as we go sometimes'

Skate's free-to-play resurrection hasn't had a smooth ride in early access. While it attracted millions of players at launch, it slumped to an early "Mixed" rating on Steam, and the following months of trudging through microtransaction muck and technical troubles haven't done much to improve player sentiment.

This week, EA seems determined to test how much more room to fall its player reception still has, revealing plans for Skate's Season 3 content rollout that includes a new map area that...