Riders Republic Review: Thrilling Extreme Sports With A Side Of Cringe
Riders Republic is an exciting, freeform extreme sports game that would benefit from keeping its mouth shut.
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If heaven is a halfpipe for a skater, then an extreme sports enthusiast’s vision of the afterlife probably looks a lot like Riders Republic. Ubisoft’s latest gargantuan open-world takes seven of America’s most scenic national parks—places like Yosemite, Sequoia, Bryce Canyon, and Grand Teton—and jams them together in one vast, sprawling map. The result is one of the most dramatic settings I’ve seen in a video game, with deep valleys, cloud-tickling mountains, dense forests, crashing waterfalls, and roaring rivers. It’s an impressive landscape, and you’re free to traverse it in a number of wildly entertaining ways—including snowboarding, wingsuiting, mountain biking, and skiing.
Riders Republic’s coolest trick is how it lets you transition instantly between the various extreme sports on offer at the touch of a button. You can snowboard down a steep, snowy mountainside, leap heroically off a cliff, then swap to a rocket-powered wingsuit and glide down into a rocky canyon. Then swoop over a dirt path, switch to your mountain bike and hit the trail with a satisfying thud, before swapping back to your wingsuit and launching back into the clouds. It’s joyously seamless and absolutely thrilling, and makes navigating this huge world a constant delight—even when you’re just travelling around aimlessly and enjoying the scenery with no particular goal in mind.
As you might expect from an Ubisoft game, the map is liberally sprinkled with icons—although I do appreciate that they’re steadily drip-fed, unlocking in manageable chunks as you earn XP and level up. There are thousands of activities to take part in, including snowboarding trick events, downhill mountain bike races, ski slaloms, and wingsuit challenges. Completing these raises your career rank, which unlocks new events, gear, and sports. You’re constantly progressing, even if you come last in a race, which gives the game a nice feeling of pace and momentum. There’s always something new to do, although sometimes I feel paralysed by choice, like, where do I even start here?
Snowboarding is the highlight of Riders Republic. In fact, it’s the most I’ve enjoyed a digital recreation of the sport since SSX 3. The impossibly steep mountains of Grand Teton, which are covered in a layer of thick, powdery snow, are where it really comes into its own. There’s a satisfying weight to the controls, and carving through the powder feels wonderfully smooth. There are some nice little details too, like the way your rider’s clothes flap in the wind as you lean forward and pick up speed. A solid, responsive trick system makes launching off ramps, grinding rails, spinning, and grabbing feel great too. The skiing is decent, but compared to the ‘boarding it’s a little too rigid and restrictive.
Mountain biking is my second favourite sport—although only in certain situations. In smaller, tighter tracks, the sharp slide when you slam the brakes feels a little too exaggerated and severe to allow for any fine degree of control over a turn. But in long downhill races, the sheer speeds you can reach, and the constant threat of scraping an obstacle and going flying, is exhilarating. The simulation of how a bike works adds a nice layer to it too. Let go of the pedals as you bomb down a steep incline and gravity will do all the work for you, the chain rattling as it spins. You can also pop tricks on bikes, and there are different models tuned for both on and off-road racing.
Flying is the simplest of the sports. Tactically braking to hit sharp turns, boosting when the way ahead is clear. But the rocket-powered wingsuits I mentioned earlier are invaluable for exploring the world, travelling to distant events, and unlocking new fast travel points. Being able to launch vertically into the air and soar across the map at breakneck speeds means even though this is a truly massive world, getting around is a breeze. It’s liberating seeing an event miles away up a snow-whipped mountain, then effortlessly flying there like some kinda jet-fuelled superhero. Riders Republic is the most fun I’ve had traversing an open-world since the Spider-Man games.
So it’s a good extreme sports game, if a little simplistic. Lead developer Ubisoft Annecy, who previously made Steep, has clearly prioritised approachability over offering any kind of deep simulation. Riders Republic isn’t concerned with accurate physics or capturing every nuance of the sports it portrays—it just wants you to have a good time. That’s fine, but it can leave the game feeling slightly superficial and shallow at times. The so-called mass races, where 60+ players are thrust into a long, multi-discipline event, are a spectacle and delightfully chaotic. But once the initial wow of seeing that many real players jostling for first place wears off, they just feel kinda gimmicky.
And the tone. Man, it’s unbearable. This is a relentlessly enthusiastic game, to a sickening degree, and the dialogue truly heinous. I don’t know whether it’s sincere or meant to be a parody of how extreme sports people speak. But either way, when the unfunny, overbearing characters say stuff like “give it some beans” and “get stuck in and put some mustard on that thing”, or suggest I “twangle in the madness”, I’ve never wanted to mute a game more. It’s just embarrassing, and actively detracts from the quality of the rest of the game. It’s some of the most grating dialogue I’ve ever heard—and the ukulele cover of Gangsta’s Paradise on the soundtrack is pure ear poison.
It’s not the prettiest game, with distant scenery lacking detail, low-res cinematics, and screen tearing in busy areas. But the dizzying scale of the world, and the complete lack of loading times, is technically impressive. It’s also worth noting that you need to be online to experience the career mode and progression—otherwise you’re stuck with the freeform, rather empty Zen Mode. Most people play games online these days, but if you can’t for whatever reason, your options will be limited. It’s frustrating, because the actual riding in Riders Republic is heaps of fun. It’s just been packaged in a completely off-putting way. You’ll have to decide if the cringe is worth putting up with.
Score: 3.5/5
Riders Republic is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. A PS5 code was provided by the publisher.
Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/riders-republic-review/