Downhill Mountain Biking games are an under-populated genre to say the least. There are some standouts like MTB Freeride and the irreverent Downhill Domination, but neither game has really been able to replicate those exhilarating POV GoPro videos on Youtube. Luckily, Descenders, by developer RageSquid and publisher No More Robots, fills that void with a polished experience that keeps you coming back with its unpredictable courses and quick session-friendly gameplay.
While not pitched as a straight up simulation, Descenders feels like a pretty authentic experience with its physics-driven gameplay and sense of speed. You can absolutely fly down hills, gradually feeling like you’re losing control, while you avoid obstacles. Slamming into trees at high velocity leads to some straight up brutal impacts. The progression of Descenders is organized kind of like Mortal Kombat arcade ladders. The structure of the game really lends itself well to small sessions, but is definitely engrossing enough to keep you playing for hours. There are 4 course themes with 5 standard runs for each, culminating in a “Boss Jump” at the end. Standard runs in Descenders consist of racing to the finish line on terrain procedurally generated by the game. You’ll sometimes have the choice of picking a run with a steep hill, lots of jumps, tight and numerous curves for turns, or a healthy mix of the three. Boss Jumps are typically steep runs that end with a ramp to facilitate grandiose Evel Knievel-esque stunts. While there is some agency in choosing the general structure of your run, you don’t have a choice in the terrain and obstacles inserted into the maps. Obstacles can range from logs in the road, jumps over pits of rock, shore bridges that force you to keep your balance along with a large variety of others. These obstacles prevent the runs from just feeling like you only have to control your speed and require some precision in how you approach each hill. And you should definitely be careful on each of your runs.
Descenders has a health system. For each session, you will start with 4 health and lose one health per time you bail. Health can be regained by completing bonus objectives such as hitting a certain MPH mark or landing cleanly on a certain amount of jumps. These are assigned at random before picking a course to tackle so be sure to choose wisely. These objectives usually feel attainable; however there are times when it feels like your available course choices aren’t suitable to completing your assigned objective. That usually leaves you to choose the safest course, so you don’t have to start from the beginning in case you bail.
This can be frustrating as the procedural nature of Descenders sometimes feels at odds with its structure. Some courses can feel downright unfair with terrain proliferating tight spaces that don’t give you enough time to line up a proper way to conquer it. These buggy courses happened only a few occasions for me and weren’t enough to hinder my experience.
Descenders can probably be best described as the Steep to Downhill Domination’s SSX. The controls and your handle over your rider depend on how you distribute your weight and how fast you approach each obstacle. You can’t land 50ft drops like in SSX, but if you approach a large ramp at a fast but manageable pace you can land most anything while throwing in a backflip or two. There aren’t a large number of trick options and the main objective of each course really only boils down to “get to the bottom.” Matt Hoffman this game is not. But it would have been nice to be able to do Bar Spins or Tail Whips and an available score-attack based trick mode similar to the Hoffman series. However, this might have also added some complexity to the controls and made it harder for extreme sports game rookies to learn the game.
Descenders is an easily recommended package to anyone feeling burnt by the lack of extreme sports games on today’s market. With the absence of Skate, Tony Hawk, and SSX there is an absolute dearth of titles like these currently available. Steep is fun but if you’re looking for something with a bit more manic-energy and variety of locales, Descenders might have what you want. I’ve sunk a lot of time into this game and am absolutely stoked to see how Rage Squid iterates on this very solid foundation.
9/10
Check Out the Descenders Steam Early Access Trailer:
Descenders is available for PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam Early Access for $24.99. You can also join the community on Discord.
PC Review
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Overall Score - 9/109/10
Colin's enthusiasm for games knows no bounds. He enjoys discussing what other people love about their favorite games and is continually in awe of the medium's ability to captivate.
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