Developer Ubisoft Annecy markets Riders Republic as an extreme sports fantasy, and that's the impression I got after spending about four hours hands-on with the game on Xbox Series X as part of a Ubisoft preview event. Developed by the team that made Steep, Riders Republic looks to be bigger and better than that game--it's far more extreme and outlandish, but in a good way--and I hope the full game delivers an experience that both captures the excitement and delivers on the ambitious vision of what I played in the early build.

　　

What Is Riders Republic All About?

The first thing to know about Riders Republic is what type of game it is, and that's an open-world extreme sports game that lets you ski, snowboard, downhill mountain bike, and fly through the air in a wingsuit or fan-powered glider. Set in a massive world with interconnected biomes of real places like Yosemite, Grand Tetons, and Bryce Canyon, Riders Republic offers snowy mountains, steep cliffs, and stunning vistas of forests, letting you live out your extreme sports fantasy from the comfort and safety of your couch.

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　　Now Playing: Riders Republic: Official Deep Dive Trailer | Ubisoft Forward 2021

　　

The Controls

I wanted to love Steep, but it never completely resonated with me in the way that Riders Republic already has after playing just four hours. The controls feel better--they're more natural and intuitive, and not to mention Riders Republic gives you multiple options (Racer and Trickster) for how difficult you want the experience to be. In Racer, the controls are more forgiving, and it's a nice way to start the experience and feel the rush of landing epic tricks on the slopes. The Trickster control setup affords you more in-depth control, increasing the overall difficulty but allowing you to better focus on getting the timing and spin calculations right to land a trick.

　　There are also Manual and Auto landing options. In Manual, you are responsible for landing a trick successfully, while Auto makes it so you can't get the rotation wrong on landing. I vividly remember stumbling often and terribly in Steep because of its dense and difficult controls. But Riders Republic builds on the foundation of Steep and gives you an easier onboarding process while also offering depth for those who want it. Manual mode gives you bonuses for the precise way in which you land, while Auto doesn't. After just a few hours with Riders Republic, I enjoyed Auto as a means to get started and get my bearings, but Manual felt far more rewarding and meaningful as a control setup because I knew the successes (and failures!) were my doing and my alone.

　　Gallery

　　Another notable element of Riders Republic compared to Steep and other action sports games is that Riders Republic's camera is seemingly always where it needs to be. Rarely in my time did it let me down or obscure some part of what I needed to see. I did encounter a few bugs and oddities, but the version of the game I played was unfinished. Beyond being functionally very good, the way in which the camera tracks your player gives the game a cinematic quality that successfully captures the rush and intensity of being on the slopes or barreling through the forest on a downhill mountain bike. The camera also lets you play in first-person, which makes the experience even more intense. I enjoyed playing this way for short periods of time, but found myself getting overwhelmed by the increased sense of speed and immediacy that a first-person camera presents. I enjoyed the third-person camera more because it helped me feel more in control, and it allowed me to take in the lovely landscapes surrounding me. Also of note, Riders Republic has a "rewind" button so when you screw up--and you likely will--you can quickly and easily jump back to a previous point and try again. And generally, the game is pretty forgiving when you crash on any given course during any sporting event, respawning you back on the track and in position to get back into the race or event with limited impact.

　　The controls aren't perfect, though. Successfully grinding rails on a snowboard was frustrating at times and it often felt like I was floating over the rails instead of actually on them. The wingsuit sections have a lot of promise, letting you basically become Falcon from the MCU, but similar to flying mechanics of that nature in other games, you will probably love or hate these sections. In particular, wingsuits can be challenging to get going again after a crash--you can either rewind to a previous section of the course or choose to perform a vertical restart which thrusts you back into the air. Both felt disorienting to me, and the wingsuit sections were my least favorite of the extreme sports. With more time with the game, however, my opinion might change as I could better familiarize myself with the controls. On a more positive note, I enjoyed mountain biking--it was my favorite activity, both as a sport and in terms of the controls. It's also worth noting that, while there are some shared similarities between control setups for each of the individual sports, each has its own distinct feel and control setup that you'll need to hone for the best results. Taking tight corners with a power slide, in particular, was extremely satisfying and the sheer volume and variety of tricks and spins--and how flashy they look--stole the show for me.

　　

What You Can Do In Riders Republic

Riders Republic is a lot of different experiences mixed into one package. There are career options for the various sports, letting you participate in races and other challenges, and each of these careers can be completed with up to five others in co-op or by yourself. You'll unlock new events and earn more experience and cosmetic rewards over time. There are also various PvP challenges where you compete against other human characters, both in live matches and against their ghosts. And there is also the open world to explore at your leisure, with dozens of locations and landmarks to discover. To get around the snowy sections in particular, there is a snowmobile you can access from the d-pad. The social hub, Riders Ridge, is a shared community space where players can walk up to people, inspect their gear and stats, and access various other elements of the game like its PvP modes, trick tutorials, in-game shop, and custom content made by other players.

　　My favorite part of the Riders Republic preview and its PvP offerings was Mass Races. These are gigantic events where 50+ players take part in a multi-sport series across three races (though, important to note: Ubisoft has already confirmed the Xbox One/PS4 versions of Riders Republic will feature smaller competitions in comparison to current-gen consoles, dropping down to a cap of around 20 players). The player with the highest score, based on their performance in each of the three races, wins. In some of the Mass Races I played, which were populated by other human characters (on pre-release servers, it should be noted), the action was chaotic but in the best way. The starting line of a race is hectic--in one race, 64 players took off at the same time--and thankfully, collisions are turned off for the first few seconds to avoid a massive, frustrating pileup. The courses themselves are sprawling--clearly designed to accommodate such a big player count--and varied in their environments. You need to dodge and weave between trees, rocks, and other obstacles--including fantastical projections not unlike what you might see in a GTA Online race--in addition to racing skilfully to stay ahead of your opponents. And when collision is turned back on, a further element of strategy comes into play as you must deftly navigate around your opponents and pass when the time is right.

　　These Mass Races start you on one type of sport, like a bike, and then transition to snowboarding, skiing, and flying from there out (though not always in that order), with the aim of rewarding the player with the most skills across multiple sports. The environments transition, too, to accommodate whatever sport you're participating in at the time. For example, the game might transition from skiing to wingsuit, thrusting you from snowy slopes into the air above towering alpines. The transition sequences and animations from sport to sport felt somewhat jarring and unnatural, with the game stuttering for a short bit as it unfolded. These races also include special abilities like rockets on your skis and even some vehicles that aren't part of the rest of the game. This makes them stand out from the rest of Riders Republic, and I hope more and different types of these can be added after launch. These Mass Races start every hour as a live service mode that you can opt into from the Riders Ridge social hub.

　　The Tricks Battle mode also stood out to me. In this mode, teams of six players enter a fantastical arena (the one I played featured a giant shark and tentacle-type rails to grind). The goal is to get the highest possible team trick score. Your team is assigned a color and, similar to Splatoon, getting the highest score in a particular district of the map will change the color to that of your team. You must constantly be on guard and defend the sections you've claimed while simultaneously going after others to get the highest score. Despite only just learning the ropes of tricks and still struggling to string combos together as proficiently as I might have wanted, I had a lot of fun in this mode. And because it requires advanced trick skills to win, it encourages you to dig into the tutorials and just hit the courses on your own time to practice your skills.

　　

Shredding The Gnar With Style

Riders Republic has extensive character customisation and cosmetic items to purchase with currency that you can unlock through gameplay or with real money. A spokesperson for Ubisoft said Riders will only offer cosmetic items for purchase, never anything that can actually impact gameplay. On the cosmetic side, even after playing just a few hours, the game was already populated with players wearing giraffe costumes and driving vehicles like an ice cream truck, and I appreciated the lighthearted nature and tone of the game in general. You will hear "gnarly" and "bro" and "stoked" many times, in a bid to capture the vibe of the community it's based on (for the most part). And the game also features famous extreme sports and outdoors branding like Red Bull, Clif Bar, and Oakley. This lighter tone is represented nicely in the Shack Daddy series, which is a collection of events with wacky and wonderful modifiers. In the one I played in the preview, everyone was dressed in red form-fitting bodysuits not unlike Ned Flanders in The Simpsons, and your character has wood panels for skis and tree branches for poles. There will be more than a dozen of these Shack Daddy events in Riders Republic at launch, and I'm excited to see how zany things get.

　　There is still so much more I want to see and learn about Riders Republic, including its "Zen" mode that I could see on the menu screen but wasn't playable. I am also curious as to how a big, living, and breathing sports MMO like this will hold up when it's put to its paces with a bigger player population. There is also the matter of how good a job Ubisoft does of supporting the game with more and more races to take part in, and how much the community comes up with in terms of user-generated content. Overall, I was extremely impressed with what I saw and played in my four hours with Riders Republic. The sheer variety of activities and compelling content makes Riders Republic something like the extreme sports game I dreamed of as a kid. Here's to hoping the full game can deliver on its ambitious goals and give players a living world worth returning to.

　　Riders Republic launches on October 28 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Stadia, and Luna.