I’m hurtling down the face of a mountain on a bicycle, over 50 other players encircling me, leaping across ramps and clattering into unfortunately placed trees and boulders. In a few seconds, I will hit a checkpoint that transforms my bike into a rocket suit, with this downhill slalom turning into an aerial battle. It’s also worth mentioning that throughout all of this, I am dressed like a giraffe wearing a tuxedo. This is Riders Republic, Ubisoft’s chaotic extreme sports game with large-scale PVP races and an unabashed emphasis on giving its players a good time.
Riders Republic is the spiritual successor to Steep, with Ubisoft throwing more sports into the mix this time around. While snowboarding and skiing return, now players have access to the likes of mountain bikes and rocket-powered wingsuits. In my preview session, I played through a guided tour of the game’s modes along with its comprehensive onboarding tutorials, guiding players through the basics of races, tricks, and world events they and others can join. All of this takes place in a sprawling open world with different biomes to complement the different sports, populated by both real online players and “ghosts” of other players’ avatars, similar to Forza Horizon’s Drivatars.
Mass Races get the heart racing
Mass Races are undoubtedly the star of the show here. Appearing in the world every 15 minutes, up to 64 players can travel to these meeting points and compete across three rounds of races. During these races, players will cycle through multiple different sports as they progress, with your mountain bike transforming into a set of skis, those skis then becoming a wingsuit, and so on. The opening sections of these races are hilarious as everyone jostles into position — there’s a 7-second window where collision detection between players is forgivingly disabled — and getting into one of the top spots requires swift reaction times and a cool head. Only one Mass Race event was available during the preview session, though provided plenty of variety across its three rounds. I was particularly fond of the closing section of the final round, which sees players having to navigate a rocket-powered bike across a straight stretch of road littered with tires — it feels like Takeshi’s Castle but with snowboards.
More evidence of that variety is to be found in Riders Republic’s smaller races, too. The curiously named Shack Daddy events revolve around the game’s weirdest gear, from trick battles with ramshackle wooden skis to hurtling through the desert with a rocket bobsled. Each of these can be played in solo or versus mode, which either brings in your party of up to six players or matchmakes you with other players doing the same event. Elsewhere, there are traditional races and trick attack modes to take part in, along with Trick Battle and Trick Free-for-All modes. The former is a 6v6 team-based affair that sees players performing tricks on obstacles in a small arena to paint them in their team’s colors, while the latter is a timed 12-player jaunt across ramps where players rack up their score to beat their opponents.
It’s tricky, tricky, tricky
As it stands, tricks could do with some extra polish before release. Grinding feels too floaty, with players inconsistently connecting to the rails and there not being a simple way to hop between rails a la Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Landing tricks, too, is a muddled process. There’s an auto-landing option that carefully positions your rider on the ground, though all PvP modes remove this option, and I found it to be unclear exactly how to get my wheels, snowboard, or skis to line up with the ground — some moves just felt designed to leave me flipping around ad infinitum. This will undoubtedly come with practice, but considering the ample tutorials, this process is poorly explained. Fortunately, there are two separate control methods — Racer and Trickster — that aim to please both types of player, but switching between the two is a finicky solution.
There’s also an issue with tricks feeling too high-risk to try to pull off during races. There’s currently no reason to try to pull off a trick during a race aside from looking flashy, as they don’t have any tangible impact on your speed. As such, I found myself performing much better when not trying to pull off any tricks at all, opting to instead fly through the air almost completely motionless. Races not requiring tricks certainly makes them more accessible, though making the landing of tricks more lenient alongside them providing speed boosts may have been more satisfying.
Cosmetic enhancements
While the tricks may require some tweaks, Riders Republic nails the open-world THPS vibe it’s clearly going for. The customization options are extensive and weird, from being able to dress up as a T-Rex wearing a ‘Free Hugs’ shirt to riding a bike designed like an ice cream truck. The soundtrack is lively, too, while the ambient sounds — wildlife chirruping, riders panting or yelling as they go down wild slopes — really adds to the atmosphere.
The open-world feels positively packed, too, with players (or at least their ghosts) racing around you at any given moment. In another neat touch, a 3D world map is available that lets you zoom in anywhere and watch other players from a birds-eye perspective. You can then swiftly fast travel to a nearby location, with loading times kept to an absolute minimum, and join in with the players you were just watching. It’s all impressively seamless and contributes to Riders Republic feeling like a huge festival celebrating extreme sports.
Riders Republic is shaping up to be a big step up from Steep. Taking several cues from Forza Horizon and THPS to make its world feel livelier and more vibrant, while providing a plethora of absurd cosmetics for players to progress towards, I’m excited to see what’s next for this wild ride.
GameRevolution played the closed beta version of Riders Republic in our preview session. PC code provided by Ubisoft.
