I’m going to be blatant in that I already love the aesthetic of Riders Republic; a new extreme sports game with some capital-T ‘Tude announced in today’s Ubisoft forward. An amalgam of west coast surfer and skate culture mixed with some gnarly, corporate-90s youth branding yields one hell of an appealing product—intentionally hilarious or not.
Ubisoft Annecy, who had previously led the development of Steep, is behind this project which doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. Annecy looks like it’s going to be Ubisoft’s arm completely dedicated to the extreme sports genre. Riders Republic holds enough similarities with the studio’s previous project that it could almost be seen as a pseudo-sequel. But while Steep focused solely on extreme winter sports, this new project covers a much broader array of activities. Some of the sports show in the presentation include snowboarding, vert snowboarding, mountain biking, paragliding, and jetpacking (the last one not being based on a real sport but if it is I’ve been missing out).
As the name suggests, community and multiplayer will be playing a huge o role in Riders Republic. Marketed as a ‘Massive Multiplayer Ground’, you’ll be able to participate in events that feature up to over 50 concurrent players at a smooth 60 FPS for next-generation consoles. However, those opting to stick with the PS4 or Xbox One will have to settle for ‘more than 20 players’ and presumably at 30 FPS.
Riders Republic will launch on February 25, 2021, for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Stadia, and Uplay+.
