Open world games and sports games aren’t really two genres you’d think to put together, but Ubisoft’s newly announced Steep makes the idea look kinda cool.
The premise is essentially that you can explore a snowy mountain range with friends, and then fuck about skiing, snowboarding, wingsuiting, paragliding, and falling on your arse.
It actually looks like a lot of fun, and there seems to be a big emphasis on sharing tricks, achievements, and the inevitable fuck ups online.
It kind of reminds me of the classic Tony Hawk or Cool Boarders games, but on a grander scale. Those gems were skateboarding and snowboarding games first and foremost, but they never shied away from encouraging you to explore and find what worked for you within the game’s environments.
Check out the trailer below:
What’s really great about Steep is that you and your mates can enjoy extreme sports from the comfort of your own sofa.
You don’t have to worry about falling down a mountain and getting impaled on a particularly jagged rock – your biggest risk is probably spilling your tea, or getting a slight hand cramp.
Ubisoft also released a brief gameplay trailer that shows some awesome first-person ski action.
Steep will be out this December for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.