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Steep

Steep is a 3D winter sports MMO set in dynamic open-world environment based on The Alps. Explore the stunning mountainous landscapes or compete against yourself and other players in a variety of challenges and events.

Publisher: Ubisoft
Playerbase: Medium
Type: Open-World Winter Sports
Release Date: December 3, 2016
Pros: +Stunning persistent open-world landscape. +Simple, easy-to-learn controls. +Create your own course and edit replays. +Choose to play alone or with other players.
Cons: -Hefty price tag. -Unwieldy jump mechanics. -Limited challenge modes. -Steep system requirements.

Overview

Steep Overview

Plunge down realistic mountain slopes in Steep, a winter sports MMO. Explore the vast open-world Alpine landscapes in a wingsuit, skis, a snowboard, or in paragliding gear. Experience dynamic weather conditions and listen to awesome soundtracks as you cruise or careen through beautiful 3D environments. Choose to simply wander from drop zone to drop zone, taking in grand views, or compete for a spot on the leaderboards in events like Proximity Flying or Big Air. Every ride you go on is recorded in great detail, from altitude to points scored, to time. Find your own lines, create your own courses, capture crazy moments, and replay the action from various camera angles. You can even edit your own replays.

Steep Key Features:

  • Breathtaking Graphics – Steep brings the stunning snow-covered mountains of The Alps to life with amazing 3D visuals.
  • Choose Your Sport choose from four different winter sports: snowboarding, skiing, wingsuit flying, or paragliding, each offering a multitude of challenges.
  • Create Your Own Course – Found that perfect line? Save it as a course and share it with friends to find out who rises up to the challenge.
  • Replay The Action – watch replays of your crazy stunts from different carmera angles, including a GoPro helmet cam. Edit your replays in-game and show off your moves to your friends.
  • Compete With Other Players jump into different challenges and events against other players in real-time or against their ghosts.

Steep Screenshots

Steep Featured Video

Steep Gameplay Walkthrough: World Premiere – E3 2016 [NA]

Full Review

Steep Review

By, Marc Marasigan

Steep is a 3D open-world extreme sports MMO where players take to the snowy slopes of The Alps, completing challenges and exploring the environment using snowboards, skis, wingsuits, and paragliders. The game’s visuals are absolutely stunning but, the environment looks and feels a bit bland. To be fair, there’s only so much you can do to make frigid mountain slopes come alive. The sound effects are fairly realistic and the voice overs done well, if a bit limited. The soundtrack is great and reminiscent of other extreme sports games. The music, however, only starts when you start riding and stops when you take a fall, which you’ll be doing a lot of in the early stages of the game.

A Voice from Beyond

Players logging into Steep for the first time are required to go through a number of tutorial missions. Instructions come from a guy on the other end of a two-way radio who walks players through the controls and mechanics of each of the four extreme sports, along with an introduction to base camps and challenges. The entire thing takes around 30 minutes to complete, more if you’re constantly wiping out. Unfortunately, there’s no way to skip the tutorial, but it’s fun and informative so the 30 minutes should fly by as fast as a guy on a wingsuit flying down a steep Alpine mountainside.

Looking Cool

Players can start customizing their characters right after they finish the tutorial missions. They can switch between any of Steep’s 8 pre-made characters at any time and customize each character to their hearts content. Unfortunately, customization is only limited to apparel, equipment, and costumes which players can buy using points earned by doing stunts or simply riding around. The more extreme the action, the higher the points received. Narrowly missing a tree while flying inches from the ground, for example, will give you around 2500 points, enough to buy a helmet, while lazily skiing down a relatively smooth and hazard-free slope will give you a measly 20 points every now and then. In addition, players can also unlock unique items, such as sponsored helmets and boards, by scoring gold medals in the required challenges or by completing certain in-game events.

Conquering The Alps

Steep plays exactly like every other extreme sports game in the market. Players move from one location to another completing a variety of tracks and courses, ranging from time trials across seemingly deserted mountain towns and stunt challenges in specially-built skateparks, to cinematic free-rides down treacherous snowy Alpine slopes at night. However, unlike other extreme sports games (*cough cough* SSX) that are, more often than not, arcade-y and linear in nature, Steep’s fairly large open-world environment let’s players choose where to go, which lines to take, which cliffs to jump off of, which challenges to take on, and, being a multiplayer game, who to do these things with. You can progress through the game on your own without any problems but grouping up with other players is infinitely more fun especially with the game’s built-in voice communication system.

Finicky Physics

Steep strives for realism with a generally-working physics engine and a G-force counter that measures how hard a player lands, or in my case, how hard I hit a tree. Unfortunately, the G-force counter is overly-sensitive, causing falls and wipeouts in situations where most snowboarders or skiers would have been just fine, such as jumping down a few feet or even hitting a wall at barely more than a crawl. Properly timing jumps is also a bit difficult to do in the game, which makes big air stunts a hit and miss affair, and consequently, makes stunt challenges significantly harder to complete. Everything else feels just fine, but then again, I can’t ski or snowboard to save my life so the pros may think differently.

Final Verdict – Great

Steep is a fun game that you can play as casually or as hardcore as you like. The game may not be as fast, flashy, and exciting, or as unrealistic as arcade-style sports games but the stunning graphics and the option to go wingsuit flying more than makes up for it. The game does have it's flaws, not the least of which is it's steep system requirements and less than stellar physics. Overall, a great game but not worth the $60 price tag.

Screenshots

Steep Screenshots

Videos

Steep Videos

Steep Trailer: Announcement – E3 2016 [NA]

System Requirements

Steep System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 or Windows 10(64bit versions)
CPU: Intel Core i5 2400s at 2.5 Ghzor AMD FX-4100 at 3.6 Ghz
Video Card: GeForce GTX560Ti or Radeon R7 260X
RAM: 6 GB
Hard Disk Space: 22 GB

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 or Windows 10(64bit versions)
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K at 3.5 Ghzor AMD FX-8350 at 4.0 Ghz
Video Card: GeForce GTX970 or Radeon R9 390
RAM: 8 GB
Hard Disk Space: 22 GB

Music

Steep Music & Soundtrack

Coming Soon!

Additional Info

Steep Additional Information

Developer(s): Ubisoft
Publisher(s): Ubisoft

Platform(s): PS4, Xbox One, PC

Game Engine: Custom in-house

Closed Beta Release Date: Q4 2016
Open Beta Release: November 18, 2016
Official Release: December 3, 2016

Development History / Background:

Steep is a buy-to-play 3D winter sports MMO developed and published by Ubisoft. The French gaming giant is known for a number of highly-successful games and franchises, such as Assassin's Creed, Rayman, and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Ubisoft announced the release of Steep at E3 2016. The game entered a free-to-play open beta phase on November 18, 2016 and was released on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on December 3 2016.