Developer Iron Galaxy is “investigating” an Easter egg fans spotted involving a trash can and a Guitar Hero clone in the recently released Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 is a remake of the PS2-era hits THPS 3 and THPS 4. The latest entry in the long-running series continues the franchise’s history of delivering pure joy and happiness, one kickflip and super combo at a time. It also, like the old games, includes visual gags in each of its updated levels. But one particular joke spotted in one of the game’s few totally new levels, Waterpark, seems to include a dig at how Activision treated Neversoft and the Guitar Hero franchise. And Iron Galaxy, the studio behind THPS 3+4, says it is going to remove the joke.
As spotted by fans online, in Waterpark, you can find a trash can containing a box for a fictional game titled “Banjo Champion.” In a Reddit post, one fan shared an image of the Easter egg/joke and insinuated it was Iron Galaxy shitting on Neversoft. This led to a comment from Iron Galaxy denying the poster’s claim.
“We have the utmost respect for anyone who makes games,” said Iron Galaxy on Reddit. “We’re investigating how that got in there in the first place. Thank you to the community for bringing this to our attention, and we’ll be removing that from the environment art in the next update.”
This prompted a lot of replies from fans asking Iron Galaxy to leave it in, as they didn’t believe it was a joke about Neversoft, but instead a joke about Activision.
Kotaku has contacted Iron Galaxy and Activision for comment.
When I spotted this box on Waterpark, I assumed it was Iron Galaxy making a joke about how Neversoft, the creators of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, were forced off the skateboarding franchise around 2005 and had to develop new Guitar Hero games instead. That sounds a lot like how Activision operates in 2025, shoving all of its teams onto its current big cash cow, Call of Duty, and not letting them make their own stuff. Eventually, Guitar Hero sales tanked, and Neversoft was closed in 2014, with its remaining staff shoved into the CoD mines. A sad and frustrating end for a great studio. In this context, the Banjo Champion box in the trash can seems fitting.
It should also be noted that the Banjo Champion box was first seen in THPS 1+2, developed by Vicarious Visions. And guess what happened to that team after making a successful Tony Hawk game? It got shoved into the Activision machine in 2021 and now co-develops Call of Duty and Diablo games.
.