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Riders Republic is one of the surprising Ubisoft titles to drop this year. While one of my other team members tried the preview of the Riders Republic out and enjoyed it, I kept myself away from it and wanted to go completely blind. One part of me was curious and cautiously optimistic. After all, there have not been too many extreme sports games out on the market in recent times, let alone one made by a big AAA studio like Ubisoft.
Safe to say, Riders Republic managed to fulfill that craving of a solid, meaty arcade-style extreme sports game which I never knew I needed. With a big map, five insane extreme sports offerings along with different game modes, some awkward product placement, Riders Republic is surprisingly one of the most fun games I had the opportunity to play this year.
Choose your control
Before we even begin with what Riders Republic offers to the players, control options are an essential section for any sports game. Riders Republic on PC allows players to either play with the Keyboard and Mouse or use an Xbox or a dual-shock controller.
However, Riders Republic does make it a point to remind players that using a controller is recommended since it makes playing the game much more fun. I agree with that sentiment! Playing on a Keyboard and Mouse was an absolute pain and nightmare, and even though I won’t go forward and say that it is bad, using a controller made it much simpler for me to do stunts than using the arrow keys and WSAD to do the stunts mid-air.
Apart from this, players can select two of the available control schemes: The racer style, which has camera control and uses the controller buttons to do stunts, or the trickster style, which uses the right stick of a controller to do the stunts.
Both schemes are suited to different playstyles, and players can switch between them in the options menu.
Flipping down the hill, with my Ski
Riders Republic starts with letting the player create their rider avatar. The character creator is decent and is just like any other Ubisoft title once they make a character and select their style of control.
Players are dropped in a mass race, covering all the extreme sports games offered in the title while also ensuring that the players know what they are getting into. Crazy, chaotic, punk fuelled sports extravaganza. Once they complete the opening intro, they get introduced to Suki, quite possibly one of the most annoying and cringe characters I have seen in any video game.
Suki acts as one of the two people responsible for showing the players what they can do. Then we get introduced to yet another annoying character accountable for teaching the players the how-tos of the game: Brett. Seriously, even though both the characters are well designed, personality-wise they cringe, and I hated interacting with them.
Once the tutorial is done and wrapped up, the whole game opens up to the players, and they are free to explore the map. The map is primarily unrevealed to the players and is a mix of snowy planes, grasslands, tundra desert, and canyonlands. Riders Republic makes it very clear to the player to go forward and explore the maps for collectibles, events, relics, landmarks, even secret stunts, which are some of the most challenging yet fun experiences I have had in the game.
Each time a player moves through a new area on a map, a bit is revealed on the main map for players to keep track of where they went through. The map might not be as big as Ubisoft’s rendition of America in Crew 2, but it is gorgeous. The map features seven different regions, faithfully created by the team, and lets players engage in the multitudes of activities they find along the way.
Win the events, make a name for yourself
The core gameplay loop of Riders Republic is simple. Follow one of the six career paths, which features six different activities: Bike Freestyle, Ski Freestyle, Ski Racing, Wingsuit, and Rocket Wingsuit. Each career path will have various events, which players can participate in to collect stars and earn XP. Doing anything in Riders Republic will give players stars. Once a player has made enough stars and XP in a career path, they are invited to the bigger competition in that particular career path to progress their career and earn sponsors.
Events are one of the core gameplay parts of Riders Republic. Players can take part in an event related to one of the six career paths to earn stars, credit and increase their XP in that said career path. XP points level players up, which unlocks more events of this career and new gear. Gears in the Riders Republic are all locked behind progression and cannot be purchased via the in-game store.
Before each event or race, players can select the difficulty and check what accessibility options they want to keep or turn off. The fewer accessibility options turned on and the higher the difficulty, the more a player gets XP.
Speaking of sponsors, once a player completes one of the competitions in the career path, they are invited to get sponsors. Sponsors give players a certain set of challenges, which upon completion will provide them with credit or stars. Complete the challenges of one of the sponsors, and players can get cosmetics, credits, gears, or stars. Sponsor challenges range from doing particular stunts or scoring a certain amount of points.
These things ensure that the players are not bored out while playing the game and ensure that they are kept engaged via various activities in the game. At the end of it all, the player's final goal is to be invited to the Ridge Invitational. A multi-sport competition with all the sports included in one single event.
Make friends, friendly rivalries, and cement your name, not your face on the pavement.
Riders Republic at its heart is a multiplayer first game. Even though single-player provides all the fun the game has to offer, the game has been built around meeting players in Riders Ridge, teaming up with them to participate in races, stunts, and other activities.
To populate the map and not make it empty, the game fills up the map with social presence.
Basically, all rides performed by players are stored in the Riders Republic’s server and are replayed in a player’s surroundings to create this social presence. This makes the world feel lively and not monotonous. After all, the feeling of seeing a random social presence of a player falling face-first in front of you is great.
Apart from this, players can do various activities in the multiplayer world of Riders Republic: Some of which are:
1) Tricks Battle: 2 teams of six players in each team perform as many tricks as possible to earn points and capture districts. The team with the highest score wins.
2) Mass Race: A public race that happens every hour. Players are announced on the map to be available in the area within 30 minutes to take part in the race. It is a 50+ player race (20+ for PS4/ Xbox One) and consists of three rounds. During the race, players will change sports by passing through gates to mix and spice the flavor of this unique challenge.
3) Versus: If you group up with other players on the map, every event, in all of the different sports careers, becomes available in VS mode. Be it events, races, or challenges; players can challenge their friends or even random strangers and see who is the best rider among them.
I grouped up with a random player from Riders Ridge, the game's hub area, and played a race with them. Even though the result was kind of not in my favor, the experience was fun.
4) Free-For-All: The 12-players public version of VS mode. Players compete in selected playlists for career events. Players choose one of the playlists, let the matchmaking find opponents, and then race it out to find the best player among them.
5) Multiplayer Competition: The competitive part of the game for players who like to have a bit of a challenge. Players can take part in MP activities (except mass races) and will progress on two tracks. Every week, players will be rewarded with weekly points according to their playtime in MP game modes and performances.
At the end of the week, different packages of rewards will be distributed based on points accumulated. Ranking and special feats in MP activities will grant division points, increasing your division level, affecting matchmaking. Every season, rewards will be given based on division level before the seasonal reset.
These modes ensure that players can have fun with their friends or even random players and enjoy the world of Riders Republic.
Style on your opponent with your fashion
As mentioned before, Riders Republic allows you to create your rider right at the beginning of the game, choosing their gender, hairstyle, beard style, and eye color. Now, this is where the in-game store comes into play. To make your rider stand out from other players, in-game cosmetics consisting of social emotes and attire for players are available. This changes monthly and sometimes weekly.
Players can get different kinds of attires in two different ways. One is by completing sponsor goals, which sometimes have rewards in the form of attire pieces. The other is by completing events and challenges to earn credit in the game. Credits, in turn, can be used to buy attire in the in-game store.
But here is the catch. Some attire and emotes, as such, are purchasable using in-game credit. For which you need to spend Rider Coins. These are the alternate in-game currency of the game, which is purchasable with real-world money. Some of the cooler costumes in the game are locked behind Rider Coins, and there is no way to unlock them in-game. Nor did I find any option to earn Rider Coins by doing any activity in the game. The cosmetic options are insane, and players can go for some wacky style, but it is disappointing when you realize that half of the cooler stuff is locked behind real-world money.
It is sad to see bigger publishers still opting to squeeze in microtransactions in one form or another while charging full price for a game. And neither did it sit well for me when it was first introduced, nor does it sit well with me in this case. It is disappointing to see most of the better-looking attire getting locked out behind microtransaction for a game that relies a lot on style and personality.
Performance and Photo Mode
Riders Republic was tested in two different setups for performance check
- Ryzen 5 2600 (CPU)
- 16GB DDR4 Ram @3000 MHz
- GTX 1050ti @ 4GB Ram
- 1TB HDD
- No SSD
For the 1050ti system, the game was running on a medium-low setting @1080p with shadows turned down. The game is performed at an average of 45-60fps, with noticeable dips around the busier map locations. What was surprising was the fact that the game still managed to look pretty in the lower settings.
For higher settings, the game was tested on the following setup:
- Ryzen 5 3600(CPU)
- 16GB DDR4 Ram @3000 MHz
- RTX 2060 Super (GPU)
- 500GB+1TB+2TB (Hard drive storage)
- 240GB SSD
On the RTX 2060S setup, the game was running on max settings @1080p and ran on full-framerate. There were no noticeable dips anywhere in any portion of the map, and it managed to look pretty.
Speaking of pretty, the photo mode is available if players love a particular portion of the game and want to take screenshots while doing a crazy stunt around the area.
The photo mode had many setting options, ranging from adjusting the lighting of the image to the time of the day and even weather conditions. Players who do not want the social presence of the characters in their game can select Zen Mode. Zen Mode removes all the events, challenges, and races from the game and lets players explore the map and take pictures in it.
However, taking pictures does not save the image on your PC. Instead, it gets uploaded to the creations, where players can like and check the photos uploaded. So make sure you take a screenshot of your creation using the Uplay hotkey or any of the desired screenshot software available.
Conclusion
In an age where there is a scarcity of extreme sports games in the current market, Riders Republic comes zooming in with its personality and loudness. With tons of activities, events, and races to go in, Riders Republic aims to perfect what 2013’s Steep tried, and provide a massive playground for sports game lovers and newcomers to try out.
RIDERS REPUBLIC
Reviewed on: UPlay PC (Review Code provided by Ubisoft)
Platform: Uplay, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X
Developer: Ubisoft Annecy, Ubisoft Milan
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: October 28, 2021
