Putting to rest months of cryptic tweets from Tony Hawk, Activision and developer Robomodo have officially announced Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 – a return to the classic gameplay of the series' heyday.

The game is slated to come out on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One later in the year, with PS3 and Xbox 360 versions following shortly thereafter.

As the name indicates, Pro Skater 5 is a call back to the old-school lineage of the first four titles – back when the franchise was in its prime. The game weds the series' finely tuned gameplay with new additions such as power-ups and the ability to shoot projectiles for specific missions.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 features a new set of levels packed with objectives and missions you can complete solo or with friends via online co-op and competitive play. Whether you just want to have a session with friends or strangers or want to level up your character online and then take them offline, the game's online flow is seamless. Your created skate parks can also be shared with world.

THPS 5, of course, brings back Tony Hawk, and he's joined by some of the series' familiar faces as well as a new generation of skaters influenced by the original titles. Skaters include, Nyjah Huston, Aaron Homoki, Ishod Wair, Riley Hawk, Lizzie Armanto, Chris Cole, David Gonzalez, Leticia Bufoni, and Andrew Reynolds.

There are three main changes to the way the game works. First up, the team have added the ability to push when you're playing - gone are the days of desperately jumping up and down to try and muster some speed. Holding down R2 causes you to push off, though you won't be able to achieve max speed this way. As you'd expect, this has also necessitated the creation of a brake ability, which can be found on L2.

The second major change is to the way grinding works. A popular playstyle used to see gamers hold down triangle as they jumped in order to snap to the nearest rail and start grinding but, thanks to the addition of a new "Slam" move, this isn't an option any longer. Holding triangle will now see you plummet towards the ground. It's a useful ability, designed to enable you to stop yourself overshooting jumps, though as an added benefit it means you need to be much more skillful with your grind timing.

The final modification is the ability to use your filled Special bar when you wish. Whereas previously it used to trigger as soon as your bar was full, the studio realised this could sometimes frustratingly result in a wasted boost. Now, once the bar is full, it'll remain so until you elect to trigger the benefits by pressing L1.