Riders Republic – The title alone sounds like some kind of utopia for bike riders and in reality isn’t actually that off the mark, except for the fact you can do a lot more than just ‘ride’ things, you can also flip things, slide things and even ride flying things! Developed by Ubisoft Annecy, the same studio responsible for the extreme ski simulation video game Steep, Riders Republic in many ways is the spiritual successor to Steep. I was a big fan of Steep back when it originally released in 2016, back when it released I had been hankering for a snowboarding and skiing game in the same vein as the Cool Boarders and SSX series of games from the past and Steep delivered big time especially when it came to the extra content delivered to the game over the course of its lifespan.

Those that played Steep would most likely agree with me that Steep was a joy to pick up and play whether it was for a quick downhill run or for an extended play session, this was largely due to the excellently refined controls that the developers embedded into the game. When I first heard Riders Republic was being developed by the same studio I put it on my “one to watch list” and got more and more excited through the games development cycle as more features got revealed, only to be disappointed when the game got pushed back, have no fear though as release day is finally here and I have a copy of Riders Republic in my hot little hands, will it pop off like a triple backflip on a snowboard or crash hard into the terrain like somebody attached to a broken wingsuit?

As you are launched into the game you will meet the games two main characters Suki and the guy who runs the food van, Jason or Robert or Steve or Something, honestly he is so annoying I have banished his name from my cerebral cortex. Both of these characters are absolutely terrible and sound like their lines have been written by a bunch of 60 year old white marketing dudes who googled “cool words that teenagers say” and decided to pepper in the results into every line of the script, the voice acting is quite good, the script utterly annoying, cringeworthy and forgettable. In all reality though Riders Republic is not the type of game that sets out to win a Pulitzer prize so I am not going to be too harsh on it for the terrible script, after all the characters do their job and that is to introduce the player to the world of riders republic and the games central hub all the while also serving as a tutorial for your first couple of rides in the game. So, what exactly is Riders Republic?

If you have played Steep then picture that but also throw in bikes and a whole lot of silliness and you pretty much have the picture, if you didn’t play Steep then Riders Republic is an extreme sports simulator that is loud and proud and unapologetic about it, it covers sports such as bike riding, skiing, snowboarding and even wingsuit riding and mixes all of these sports into an absolute bucket load of event types with both racing and trick events included. There is a lot of variety here, so much that it would almost be impossible to become bored. The main premise of the game sees you as the new up and coming rider on the tour with the objective being to take on and tackle all and any manner of extreme sporting events to earn stars and therefore progress up the rankings and unlock even more events and sports to participate in, it’s a pretty simple gameplay loop but thankfully it is executed exceptionally well here so well that RR is the type of game that is very hard to put down.

The Riders Republic hub is the games central setting and from here you can launch into multi-player events (more on this later), customize your character, buy new clothing and learn and practice new tricks amongst other many other things, the hub really only exists as an area to show off your fancy clothes and costumes to other players as most of your time will be spent either in the games map screen navigating to your next event or actually participating in events. Let’s talk about that map screen, it’s massive, the map that is, and when you have it open you can actually see all the other players and their whereabouts on the map as they ride to and participate in events, it actually helps to convey the immense scale of the world you are inhabiting. The Riders Republic world is massive and consists of 7 regions that all seem to be based on real life US National Parks with the terrain ranging from dry and dusty through to grass and then snow, there is a wide range of environments to see and explore here and all of these are sensationally rendered by the games engine, there are some really gorgeous locations to see here and I had loads of fun exploring and playing around with the games photo mode.

Of course admiring scenery is only a small part of the game, with the major part being to actually ride things and try not to kill yourself, thankfully you have complete freedom with how you want to tackle the game, see a cycling event on the map? Then go to it and compete in it, bored with cycling? Then head to the snowy part of the map and do some skiing or snowboarding, it’s that simple and this freedom is one of the main parts of what makes Riders Republic so great and so easy to just pick up and play. The world feels really alive as well as whilst you are looking at the map or even out and about exploring you can see all of the players that are out and about in the same area as you, Riders Republic is a game that is just primed for multi-player gameplay, unfortunately this is the component of the game I was most disappointed in and I really feel like there is massive potential that has been wasted here. There are two multiplayer modes that you can start from the Riders Republic hub and these are free for all and a 6 v 6 team PvP mode where riders have to perform tricks in order to capture different parts of a map, unfortunately I can’t really comment on how either of these modes work as I tried to match make several times for both modes and never managed to get into a game. I am not sure whether there is a problem with the matchmaking system or whether it just comes down to players not being interested enough to play these modes or even be aware that they exist but Ubisoft needs to find a way to get players to match make for these modes as they are advertising Riders Republic as a massive multiplayer community and so far it just isn’t.

There is one multi-player component I did manage to take part in though and it was called a ‘mass race’, these happen every hour in the Riders Republic game world, and are announced via a pop up on screen which allows you to automatically set a way point to the part of the map where the event is taking place, it’s fun travelling to these events as along the way you get to see all the other players connected to the world scrambling to reach the start of the event in time, it really gives a sense of scale. Once at the start of a mass race you compete against 50 other players in a series of 3 races in order to try and get the best ranking possible and win experience, upgrades and prizes. Mass races really showcase the multi-player potential of Riders Republic and I hope this is an area of the game they hope to expand upon through it’s lifecycle. It would of also been nice if events and races had some kind of ranking system where other players best times or trick scores were shown in a scoreboard format before races, this would help serve the multi-player connected vibe that Ubisoft were going for here and at the same time add replayability to the races as you would try and beat other people and your previous scores. For a game that is being marketed as ‘massively multi-player’ I just can’t help but think there is so much missed potential here, hopefully this can be fixed somehow in future updates.

Of course lots of freedom in games, loads of different areas to explore and a load of varied courses to race and pull tricks around is one thing, but what is the actual gameplay like? Thankfully for the most part the controls in Riders Republic are pretty much flawless and it is a joy to race, fly and flip and dip your rider around the tracks. There are even two different control schemes to choose from so if the default style doesn’t suit you then you can switch to the alternative or even switch between the two styles as your progress through the game as one is more suited for racing whilst the other feels more at home in the tricks based events.

The game controls fantastically and feels really fluid, after a  while pulling off crazy tricks just becomes second nature, the only downsides being that sometimes you do tend to get stuck on bits of terrain and this has the tendency to be really frustrating as it can bring all of your momentum to a dead stop and cause you to lose a race, thankfully there is a rewind function that you can use if you find yourself smashed into a tree after a bad turn, unfortunately a lot of the time rewinding can actually be more of a hindrance than actually crashing as it can rewind you back and put you in a worse situation than you were originally in, used sparingly in emergencies though it is actually a good function to have. All frustrations aside though the game is actually a joy to play.

Graphically the game looks pretty good through to absolutely jaw dropping depending on which areas you are exploring or racing through and the game even includes a ‘zen’ mode that allows you to explore the world freely and spawn pretty much anywhere you want, this is great for finding perfect spots to have a crack at the games wonderful photo mode, you can really take some nice screen grabs and show off just how beautiful the game can look. In the sound department, things are ok, you make whooshing noise as you slide through snow, your bike crushes rocks as it runs down hills, birds chirp, wind rustles, the game sounds as you would expect an extreme sports game out in the wilderness to sound. As far as music goes the games soundtrack is pretty unremarkable, even as far as licensed music goes it is acceptable but it is on the boring side of it, the music is there, it doesn’t exactly annoy but it doesn’t really excite either.

Riders Republic is billed as a massive online socially connected world and even though the framework is there for the game to live up to this, it is currently the area that is most disappointing with the game, the world feels alive but once you scratch the service you start to see that it isn’t as alive as what they want you to think it is. This doesn’t mean that Rider Republic is a bad game, quite the contrary I really enjoyed my time playing the game and can’t wait to jump back in, I also can’t wait to see what improvements they add as the games seasons progress. Riders Republic is at its heart an extreme sports game that doesn’t take itself too seriously which is especially evident by all the crazy costumes you can earn and adorn during races, it is a game that has managed to capture some of the same pick up and play ‘just one more go’ magic that titles like Cool Boarders and SSX captured back in the day and if either of those titles spark nostalgia in you then I would advise you to rush out and buy Riders Republic right now as you will have a blast playing it. Riders Republic really is a solid title and even if you aren’t interested in extreme sports I would encourage you to give this one a try, it might just leave you hooked!