Riders Republic is Ubisoft's newest outing into extreme sports, following The Crew and Steep. With a focus on BMX, snow, and aerial sports, Riders Republic offers variation to keep things interesting, with tracks that are equal parts fun and challenging. Unfortunately, it needs a lot of refinement in its controls and how it presents the various progression systems to the player, as both quickly become annoying and confusing.
Riders Republic has been compared to its predecessors since its release and rightfully so. Ubisoft took the extreme snow sports and wingsuit flying from Steep and combined it with the ability to change modes of transportation on the fly that was a key mechanic in The Crew to create an intriguing blend in Riders Republic. Where Riders Republic expands these ideas is with the implementation of BMX events and a means of transportation that's as satisfying as Spider-man's web slinging. Since Riders Republic is based in a huge open-world amalgamation of real U.S. National Parks, it would take a long time to get from any one point to another, so Riders Republic gives players a rocket suit that feels satisfying to use.
When it comes to the sports themselves, each of the three sports categories have various sub-categories. BMX, Snow Sports, and Aerial sports have race, trick, and stunt events, with other random variations sprinkled in like a pizza delivery BMX event and rocket ski races. There are also Mass Races that happen every thirty minutes, where up to 64 players can meet in a designated area and compete in a multi-round race that switches between sports.
To populate these races, and the world itself, Ubisoft developed a way to store caches of every player's racing performance and fill up events with their ghosts. There will also be some players actively in the event as well, but using this ghost method is far less taxing on servers and keeps the game feeling alive and vibrant. Local multiplayer still needs some work, as players are only placed in populated races when playing solo, while a party can only play together in a dedicated versus-mode which currently detracts a good amount of fun from playing with a group of friends.
The weakest part of Riders Republic are its controls, as the deadzones and input lag issues are atrocious for a game predicated on maneuvering at high speeds. In order to move, players need to make broad inputs because slight movements left or right won't do much at all. This becomes a huge problem when trying to avoid an upcoming obstacle and combined with the input lag, players will frequently over-correct their movement by accident and fly off the track. This is particularly bad in the aerial sports because they already feel floaty due to being an airborne activity and the lag will result in constant crashing due to not having the moment-to-moment feedback necessary for fine movements.
It would also benefit from adding a new player progression system, as it's currently confusing and overwhelming. Not only does each sport have its own career progression but so do their sub-categories and trying to keep track of it all feels incredibly difficult. Players also receive new items so often that receiving them doesn't mean anything, especially when the reward is a marginally faster bike with a different color. The best way to describe this system, both in look and execution, is that it resembles the free-to-play battle pass model but if there were seven battle passes. Luckily, Riders Republic is fun without any of this, and player progression will inevitably happen over time, but the system's constant presence is annoying, nonetheless.
Overall, Riders Republic is an incredibly fun game that's held back by its controls and the Ubisoft fanfare of microtransactions and content bloating. These issues can be fixed though and with players already being turned off by these issues, Ubisoft will likely take steps to address them - even if it's just tightening up the controls. Though Riders Republic is a thoroughly good time, some players will rightfully feel that its current issues may not justify the price tag.
Rider's Republic is available now for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Stadia and PC. Screen Rant was provided with a PS5 download code for the purpose of this review.