Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer is going viral online over 20 years after it launched because a lot of people are impressed and blown away by the game’s water tech. It’s a great example of how sometimes you don’t need 4K ray-traced hyper-realistic visuals. All you need is a cool-looking wave that runs at 60FPS.
On July 8, as spotted by Time Extension, a Twitter account dedicated to sharing clips of older Xbox games posted a 60-second-long video showing a person playing Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer, a Tony Hawk-like action-spots game from 2002 that was developed by Treyarch. The video went viral with nearly 5 million views, over 1.5k shares, and around 15ks likes. Here’s the video:
Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer (2002 Video Game) pic.twitter.com/eL24E9SiQb
— Xbox Nostalgia (@Xbox_Nostalgia) July 8, 2026
A lot of people seem incredibly impressed by Pro Surfer’s water. Artic Eggs developer The Water Museum suggested that there isn’t anything crazy happening under the hood, explaining that the wave looks like an “artist just gradually shifted to that teal color on the wave based on the height.” Others shared a few more details about how the wave was possibly pulled off and looks so good, but the short story is that this was done manually and with an eye on capturing what looks cool, not what looks perfectly real. Actor Jon Cartwright, who reshared the clip on Twitter, added: “Why is this the best-looking water ever?”
Now, I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I do agree with many of the comments and reshares that the water in Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer, a game released over 20 years ago, still looks damn good in 2026. I think it also helps that Pro Surfer ran at 60 FPS, and so the wave’s animation and movement look very smooth. This is why so many retro games still hold up, at least right until you reach the Xbox 360 era, when everyone started using Unreal and wanted to be hyper cinematic, and we ended up with far too many games that struggled to run at 30FPS and looked blurry as shit.
Sometimes the less real-looking but more performant option is the best option. Don’t believe me? Look at all the people going wild over a so-so surfing game from 2002 simply because the waves and ocean tech in it look cool and run well.
This all reminds me of that terrible surfing game Rockstar published 20+ years ago. Anyway, here’s some more gameplay of Pro Surfer.
