In the colorful and detailed game world of Riders Republic, there’s always someone somewhere messing around with a new record. The map may be huge, but you rarely feel like you’re on your own. Players advance on skis or cross bikes and regularly fly over you with their suits. You actually have the feeling of walking around a piece of North America annexed by hotheads. This is something.

Ubisoft has not glued together different parts of the landscape very subtly. Sometimes snow and desert are a stone’s throw from each other. After biking hundreds of meters in the soft, dry red Canyonlands, you’re at the foot of the snowy white Grand Teton, ready to snowboard through the soft white powder. Logical? not exactly. amusing? the most.

This gigantic game world facilitates not only convergence, but also an almost huge number of exciting races and games, usually against ghosts from others. The more missions you complete, the better your gear and the more new events you unlock. There are different levels of difficulty for almost every event. You decide how many experience points you want to earn.

Events are very different from each other, and not just because of the type of sport. Some assignments are real attrition battles. There is, for example, sledge jumping that you can enjoy in the afternoon. And navigating the tight slopes in a suit of wings or gliding on skis or mountain bikes is challenging enough to ignite the desire for a better grade. Riders Republic really looks like a classic Highest score.

Other events have a playful tone, or exist only by the grace of beautiful graphics. Take it if you’re crashing down sandy slopes on rocket skis, a neon night ride in a winged suit or package delivery on grandma’s bike. Then there are the big events where you compete against 59 other players in skis, mountain bikes and wingsuits. At the same time, in real time. Riders Republic doesn’t always take themselves too seriously.

Fortunately, Riders Republic is consistent in terms of controls and gameplay. Whether it is mountain biking, skiing, flying a wingtip or snowboarding: it is very well controlled and very precise. The gameplay is ultimately more of an arcade than a sim, but Riders Republic certainly doesn’t share a class with SSX or Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX. You still have to deal with the laws of gravity and you have to position yourself properly when landing. The game also has a system that makes landing easier, but then you earn less experience points.

Compared to Steep, mountain biking is the biggest and most fun plus too. The sense of speed is excellent and mastering the corners is an entertaining challenge. The action about getting high scores with tricks is also fun – especially compared to Steep. The system of tricks is much simpler, although still imprecise. You probably have no idea what trick to do beforehand. But hey, you can always get a good result, whether on a skateboard or on your bike.

On top of that, Riders Republic is based on Ubisoft’s formula that is open to the world you already know, but with high scores rather than American religious groups not based on an established religion or Cuban countries not inspired by Cuba. After all, Riders Republic is a very logical sequel to Steep, which really excelled at putting an amazing amount of symbols on the map.

Getting around simply becomes a routine in the Riders Republic. You choose an event on the map as you spawn nearby. Grab the rocket jumpsuit (the fastest option) and fly there. Completes the event and unlocks new variants. Finished, Rinse and repeat. The game motivates you a bit to explore, but the areas related to discovery (eg because you can find special sleds) are marked on the map. Even then, it will appear nearby and fly to the mark on your screen.

Almost all sports are fun to do. Only the rocket suit looks kind of less fun than the regular suit. However, there are a lot of tasks that you have to do with that speeding winged suit. It may be personal, but the undersigned were simply not impressed with these events. You then have to fly through the loops while going very fast. With a regular winged suit, you really have the feeling that you have to spend exactly the time and adjust a lot. This is more satisfying than flying through the air with a rocket like crazy.

Riders Republic don’t do much wrong. Indeed: the game has so much (good) content that it is very impressive and does not constantly overwhelm you. However, I’ve noticed a bit that the Riders Republic doesn’t quite know what to do with all the unlockables and events. A lot happens on the screen especially in the map menu. That in itself is not bad – it basically means that the game has a lot of content – but it can sometimes be difficult to find a specific event.

The soundtrack is nothing to write home about. There are a few punk songs that fit well into the game’s atmosphere, but there’s often old-fashioned hip-hop or a sad cover. There is still a missed opportunity, especially for an extreme sports match.

However, it shouldn’t get “worse”. Steep was also a game that was greatly expanded by Ubisoft. Steep’s content track was excellent and even industry leading, but the game was really a jumble of icons three years after release. Whoever starts this game all over again now, is really overwhelmed with information. Hopefully Ubisoft won’t make that mistake again, because if the Riders Republic gets a similar boost to Steep, this game deserves to be restarted a few times over the next few years.

Riders Republic is now available on Playstation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. For this review, the game was played on PlayStation 5.