Over the weekend, I’ve been playing quite a bit of Riders Republic. This is the new extreme sports MMO that Ubisoft has put out to effectively replace the failure that was Steep. You’ve got a massive open world to explore, dozens of activities to partake in across all sorts of extreme sports, and what feels like a near-endless progression path. I was super skeptical about this game prior to release, thinking that it was just a new version of Steep that would go out and be left to fend for itself. However, having played it, I now know that this game has some serious legs, and I love it.
The game is pretty bloody simple. You’re just a single person in a huge part of the world that’s basically a collection of the national parks in the US mashed together. You’re all there together to take part in extreme events, earn stars, and make a living out of the videos that the company funding the place is paying out. You earn stars for each event but can earn more as you go through optional objectives and complete various challenges. On the surface, it’s just another racing game, but under the hood are mechanics and systems that make it so much more, and I can’t wait to get to the top.
Even on this early weekend, I’m seeing people with 600 stars or more, which is no easy number to reach. I think that people are identifying with one section or another and are simply going for it. There’s no other way to go, and I think it’s so refreshing to see an extreme sports MMO like this take off and do well. You get the sense that the developers were really passionate about this title, and that comes through in each moment of gameplay.
With the first year of support already in place, I think that Riders Republic stands a fantastic chance of being a huge MMO in its own right. I don’t think it will be quite as big as the biggest names out there like Destiny 2 and World of Warcraft, but I do think that the player base will stick around for at least twelve months just to see what comes out of it.
