Steep (PlayStation 4) Review

Set in the Alps, just a small distance away from where the studio is based, Steep allows players to freely explore a massive open-world mountain region, full of challenges, races, secrets and, of course, other players. It centres on four disciplines of winter sports in skiing, snowboarding, paragliding and wing-suiting, and also allows the player to walk and run to reach the perfect drop-in spot.

Situating Steep on the scale between realism, something along the lines of 1080 Snowboarding, and pure arcade-lunacy, best represented by the frenetic SSX Tricky, is no easy task. Although there's a fairly clear focus on authenticity in terms of its core mechanics, with no ridiculous combo-chaining system in sight, it's also nowhere near harsh enough to be considered simulative. The controls are too leisurely and forgiving for that sort of experience, and there's no significant learning curve. It's fair to say it's realistic on the surface, but ultimately, it's more concerned about keeping things interpretable and leisurely. As such, it ends up somewhere in the middle ground, much like the Amped series, which started off realistically but gradually embraced its more playful side in the interest of free-flowing fun. Pleasingly, Steep seems to make most of the right compromises, preserving the fun and fluidity made possible by an open-world experience.

One such feature that illustrates this sense of compromise is the mountain map, which can be used to fast travel around, even to areas you've never actually visited before. This might sound like an unrealistic way to navigate the huge open-world Alps setting, but it ensures that exploration never feels laborious, as the player never really needs to walk uphill to find a nook or cranny. Instead, they can find a point higher up, and shred their way down. Some additional navigation tools are also in place to help exploration and discovery, such as the binoculars, which can be used to scout new areas and mark points of interest with a visible beam. To some this system might seem somewhat superficial, but being able to warp straight to events as well as locations ensures the game is fluid, hardly ever stuttering in terms of progression. The only slight annoyance with the mountain map is that, despite being 3D, it doesn't orientate directly with where the player is pointed, which sometimes causes a sense of disorientation and frustration.

The mountain is always populated with other players, creating a lasting impression of life and activity, near and far. Even if the player goes out of their way to stick to solo pursuits, when attempting challenges, they will regularly encounter others attempting the same task. This in itself seems to encourage interaction, especially on particularly difficult runs where it's hard not to want to succeed before the guy behind you. For example, one particularly difficult wing-suit run feeds the player through several windows of castle ruins. Having bailed ten or fifteen times, the awareness of the two players also attempting this feat was drastically heightened. Inversely, while this competitiveness tends to ramp up quickly, the first player to achieve the challenge hung back, and congratulated the next player who succeeded. This, however, is about as far as the multiplayer integration really goes.

Ubisoft is no stranger to open-world games, nor to online multiplayer, as previously stated, and Annecy specifically has great experience when it comes to this. However, while the open-world aspect has been impressively crafted, with no loading times between regions, making it an especially seamless experience to traverse the whole thing, the online multiplayer aspect does seem surprisingly passive. Firstly, Steep lacks a coherent system of communication, with one button used to ask other players to partner up and another used to feed out an arbitrary audio clip. These sound annoying, and even a little creepy at times, and they just don't seem to work. For the most part, others seem resistant to join up for a specific task and it's hard to see why they couldn't implement a Rocket League style chat system, with simple and concise messages.

The result is a mountain that bustles with activity, yet is still best absorbed as a solo experience. Catching sight of someone wing-suiting over you whilst you've been shredding down an obscure route on your own for half an hour is strangely gratifying. It just seems a shame that more co-ordination and general interaction couldn't be implemented on a larger scale. There are, however, some other ways in which players can share and be competitive. Players can create their own runs, and then challenge others to beat their score. There's also a fairly in-depth video-editing feature, so the best death-defying moments can be shared amongst the community. Bizarrely, though, for such an effortlessly fluid and fun experience that seems so suitable for strong multiplayer integration, Steep is best played solo, with others' presence simply a background element for the most part.

Visually, Steep can be absolutely stunning. Each region seems to have a distinguishing aesthetic slant, which really is important in such a massive open-world. It's particularly impressive during sunsets, especially when paragliding and wing-suiting over an expansive view, since the draw distance is very good. The music seems to be fairly low key for the most part, kicking in for races and challenges, but tactfully receding during the more tranquil periods of exploration.

There's a typical XP system in place, which is suitably generous even when just messing around. Points earned can be spent on new gear, or some upgrades, as well as opening up new regions at a steady and agreeable rate. While there are micro transactions available, thankfully they're not forced upon anyone nor displayed with any real prominence. Considering the passive multiplayer nature of the experience, it's hard to see anyone being so inclined to spend on credit packages.

How players will split their time between the four winter sport options probably depends entirely on personal preference. Skiing and snowboarding seem to be the most fleshed out, yet they feel surprisingly similar, which will upset enthusiasts of both. As a result, one might expect the snowboard to be the most popular, since it's slightly more intuitive and clear in terms of controls and balance. The most arbitrary seems to be the paragliding, which rarely chalks up a challenge or thrill. Wing-suiting seems to offer the most exhilaration, though it's easy to get tired of the challenges for this, which mostly revolve around hitting checkpoints or making it through narrow gaps. The most realistic rush definitely comes during these tight escapes, but failing provides some emphatically hilarious bails, which makes one wonder why they didn't implement a more in-depth bail system, akin to the 'Hall of Meat' feature seen in the Skate series. It definitely could be its own standalone mode, and it wouldn't be surprising to see this emerge further down the line, as there is a season pass and DLC content upcoming. Probably this initially seemed to be a little contrary to the conservative, realistic tone in general.

However, this leads us back to the biggest talking point about Steep. While it certainly succeeds in being a fluent, fun experience, with a good sense of balance and progression, it's also filled with missed opportunities. While each area is reasonably distinct, with no totally ridiculous jumps, physics-defying grinds, or the ability to boost to gain lift, the possibilities for tricking and general variance are quite limited. It's hard to see why the game can't embrace a wackier side, as the Amped series did in time. In fact, it would actually seem quite a wise move to embrace some more arcade-driven environments in the future. Again, this might even manifest itself sooner rather than later in the form of DLC content. While it is grounded in its tone and aesthetic, there's no particularly good reason why it can't be zanier and more adventurous. Especially as the mountain would look so great lit up by neon at night. Either way, it doesn't seem there's a justifiably good reason why it should have to choose between realism and wackiness, other than a fear of being associated and compared to classics like SSX Tricky.

Steep is a very enjoyable, leisurely game, with plenty to get stuck into. It's suitable for short bursts, but thanks to its excellent sense of fluidity, small sessions often become large ones. Whether exploring solo, trying to earn that gold medal or beat another player's best score, there's always a plethora of content to stumble upon. It's hard to find fault with anything in particular that the game attempts, but it still ends up feeling like a slightly missed opportunity. This is both because it's too grounded, and also because the multiplayer integration is merely a passive background component most of the time.