Riders Republic is all about the great outdoors. In our interview with the game's content director, Thomas Geoffroyd, he repeats the phrase several times. After a four hour hands-on guided beta and a handful of extra time spent shredding around the game’s world on my lonesome, it's clear that Ubisoft has captured the essence of the great outdoors perfectly. Played across several iconic National Parks, Rider lets you flick between different vehicles on the fly, swapping between skis to snowmobiles to BMXs with the tap of a button. You can sit at the top of El Capitan and watch the sun flicker through the clouds, or you can wander through the forests and feel the pulsating energy of the titular Riders Republic as bikers race past you at dizzying speeds. Though Zen mode, a completely solo mode with no other players, ghosts, or NPCs was not available in the beta, in the full release it will allow you to ride through Bryce Canyon without a care in the world or a soul by your side.
Here's the problem; most people aren't buying Riders Republic to experience the great outdoors. It feels as if the racing, tricks, and structure of the experience comes secondary to recreating the beauty of the wilderness – but most players are buying it to race fast and to pull off sick tricks. That's probably going to cause some gnarly friction bro when the game hits shelves in October.
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As a racing game, it's fine. In my first few contests, I came a respectable third and fourth. The next two, I won, and in my fifth, I careened off-road and came dead last. I'm not telling you this to brag – two wins and just three podiums across five races is hardly impressive – but to highlight Riders' biggest strength. It felt easy to pick up and understand, so much so that within a couple of races, everyone was eating my dust. But it wasn't so simple that I had mastered it all instantly, and one small error near the start of a race ended up costing me dearly. The reward and challenge of it all feels well balanced, and the controls lean into an arcade simplicity that a game like this needs in order to attract a big audience.
Still, there was one pretty glaring problem with the racing. As with most racing games on open trails, you need to pass through specific gates; this is to stop players just making a beeline for the finish and ignoring the twists, turns, and ramps of the track. For a game that's all about free expression, these gates are ridiculously narrow, meaning you can be on the edge of the road drifting around, and still end up missing them. That wouldn't be so bad if you got a two second penalty, but instead, you just have three seconds to turn around before being dropped down in front of the gate with all of your momentum torn away. Either that, or you can elect to rewind time – for you, not the other racers – and have another shot at it. The problem is you don't have control over how much you rewind back, so often end up making the same mistake twice or being shot so far back it would have been better to take the momentum penalty in the first place. These suck all the fun out of the game, but hopefully a little bit of beta feedback will result in a tweak.
These gates are particularly troublesome in the Mass Races. These are huge events played with up to 60 other players (30 on Xbox One or PS4), and despite faring pretty well when racing against ghosts – there are no NPCs in these situations, just the ghosts of other players – and my four beta demo teammates, I ended up coming 40-somethingth in the Mass Race because of these damn gates.
Thankfully, these are not an issue in the trick side of the game. However, while the races embrace the arcade carnage, the tricks keep things a little bit more realistic. The physics are more Tony Hawk's, and the various maps are eccentric and creative, but the tricks themselves feel reined in. Perhaps I'm yet to master them, but while 900s and double backflips are easy, you can't chain or combo moves together very well. It's possible, especially with the grinding used as a way to connect different ramps, but it doesn't have the full flair you'd expect. You can jump off metal mammoths and grind around an upside down snake, so there's chaos to be found here, but it doesn't quite go all the way.
This sense of free flowing chaos can be found in the cosmetics, however. In my short time with the beta, I earned enough cash to buy three different costumes, including a chubby dinosaur. Meanwhile, certain events have specific costumes – one had me dressed as a cycling giraffe, another a skiing panda. Through the game's open world exploration, you can also find 'Funkies' – I found one that turned my mountain bike into a classic ice cream bike, complete with mini parasol and freezer tub. These are fun additions that add a much needed dose of personality to proceedings.
The modes themselves are well thought out. We only had a chance to try bike racing and snow tricks, but there's also bike tricks, snow racing, and wingsuits in the full game, as well as a variety of multiplayer modes. Personally, I'm not a fan of it being always online, or of racing ghosts. I'd like a balance between the completely empty Zen mode and the bustling spectacle the game is now, but hey, I understand why Riders is doing it that way. Unlike the gates and the weighty tricks, complaining about the onlineness of the game feels just like that – complaining – rather than evaluating the pros and cons of what I've experienced. It's worth knowing before you go in though; while it doesn't require communication and you can elect to play solo (against ghosts) or PvP (against actual online players), the game is essentially always online. I understand why the developers went in this direction. I also don't think they should have.
Those gripes aside though, Riders Republic is shaping up to be a great game. My gut says that it feels a mite too ambitious for its own scale and budget, but everything I've played of it seems solid enough. You might say it has big air, but after some over-rotation, I'm worried it might not stick the landing.
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