Riders Republic Review

Riders Republic

Release: January 1, 1970
Publisher: Ubisoft - Ubisoft Annecy - T
Developer:
Genre: PS5 Reviews, ReviewsXbox Series X Reviews
PEGI:
Comments:

 

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Jump into the Riders Republic massive multiplayer playground! Grab your bike, skis, snowboard, or wingsuit and explore an open world sports paradise where the rules are yours to make—or break.

• Battle against up to 64 players simultaneously in a massively multiplayer playground.
• Compete in an all-out mass start race—collide, grind, and fight your way to the finish!
• Customize your character to show off your style to your friends or show up at the competition.
• Bike, ski, snowboard, or wingsuit through a seamless open world in Career mode or multiplayer events.
• Go wild on the heights of iconic US national parks like Yosemite, Zion, and Bryce Canyon.

Editor-in-Chief Comments: I had the fortunate opportunity to play this title on Google Stadia, and for the most part the results are fantastic. I found a bit more stuttering than I did on the PlayStation 5 version or the Xbox Series X version, but have yet to determine if that was an Internet connection issue, or an issue with the game. Seeing as others have not had similar issues – I’ve watched a few streams – I’m going to assume it’s an error on my end! Either way, for those looking for flexibility in their gaming life, playing this on Google Stadia seems to be a big win.

During the Gamecube era, SSX Tricky was one of my favorite games, while some of the sequels did a decent job in keeping that spirit alive, it’s been a long time since a game featuring snowboarding captured my interest….until now. Riders Republic for lack of a better term is the X-Games wrapped into a Forza Horizon game, Ubisoft nailed this one hand down. The game features events using all of the above-mentioned modes of transport in a HUGE map (Ubisoft is getting good at these maps lol) that you can traverse from one end to the other if you prefer in search of events to participate in just like Forza.

Now you have a large range of types of events to compete in, stunt scores, races, and yea you might need to zip around a campsite and deliver pizza….it’s all part of the game. You have everything from deserts, forests, snow-covered peaks, mud-covered landscapes to explore and compete in. Perhaps, you aren’t in the mood for competition, well you can just cruise and explore however you want in search of photo ops, landmarks, and other secrets.

The world here is alive, pull up the map and you can see other players live moving across the map. The landscapes are littered with Bikers, Snowboarders, Skiiers, folks on ATVs or in the skies with jetpacks and wingsuits. There is always something to see and experience in Riders Republic.

One of the great parts of this game is the different control types and accessibility options for gamers, you can have it so you almost always land tricks with little effort (with a sacrifice of a lower score) or take all the training wheels off and have complete control.

This game is all about fun but gives you some goals to shoot for if you want to. Every model of transportation also feels different, with a great level of detail. Obviously, in the snow, a snowboard should control and feel better than a bike, but once you hit the dirt with the snowboard all bets are off.

A great bonus for a level of realism in an otherwise completely batty game. Now one of the things I wasn’t a huge fan of is the voiceovers and cut scenes, not that they are done poorly or anything, but the style dude-bro choices they made I found to be a little annoying after a while. They are high quality and well made, it just all sounds a little dude where’s my car-ish if you know what I mean.

Riders Republic is designed with a high level of immersion guiding you seamlessly from one challenge to the next through a complete eradication of loading screens and a fast travel system that whisks you up to the next mountain peak before you have a chance to consider doing something else.

Your goal is to collect stars by completing events in whichever order you please, You get stars for crossing the finish line, you get stars for doing especially cool jumps or completing a race on an ice cream bike without falling over. Those stars in turn open up more events and types of events as well as gear and other collectibles. There is always something to do here, and you don’t need to play with others to do it. But….there is stuff to do with friends here…

The live multiplayer mass races are completely insane, you and 63 other folks competing at the same time to get to the finish line. Of course, collision is enabled for this, so right off the start you and everyone else are smashing into each other for dominance and a chance to break away from everyone else. It’s complete gaming insanity at its best.

All in all Riders Republic is VERY well done, easy enough for everyone to try, but still gives you a sense of challenge to do everything. One shortcoming I fear for this game is its release date, it is so close to the release of Forza that I fear not enough people will check it out. But it truly is a great alternative to Forza for those not into cars that much and visually it’s a stunner to boot.

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