Just released this Saturday morning, brought to you by No More Robots and RageSquid, Descenders has a lot of what you would expect from an early access game. It’s missing a little bit of content, has holes here and there, and the odd strange map generation. That being said, it straight away feels like a game that was built by a team that truly cares about the initial “feel” of a video game. As soon as your hands wrap around your controller or mouse and keyboard (seriously though, play this on a controller), it’s hard to put down.
It brings out the inner sportsman that has been dormant since we all put away with Skate and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, and takes the wheel to all of your focus. Personally, my favourite part of the game is the randomly generated courses, with each playthrough of the games 4 levels bringing totally different experience at each stage, whilst maintaining enough of the same elements to hold on to the feeling of progressing through a level.
I could go on to endlessly complain about how the game doesn’t have an ever extending back catalogue of content to breakthrough, or how the odd generated map doesn’t quite fit the perfect experience. Then again, the developers are perfectly honest with what you’re getting into, as an early access game, they’ve laid out the bare basics in gameplay and unlockable cosmetics, and have begun chatting about what their roadmap holds for all of us pedal-heads. From daily challenges to a tournament system and a larger world map, there’s plenty more to come and I am most definitely on the watch for when it comes. Expect a follow up when it happens.
I am hopeful that Descenders will grow into something a lot more than what it currently is, and at this stage, I’m happy to have it in my library for when I need to kill a few hours here and there. The mountain biking genre and cycling genre is a very unrepresented one up until this stage, and as an ex-biker I look forward to seeing where the team at RageSquid can push this to help fill my desire to get behind the bars.
Personally, I’d recommend this game to anyone remotely interested in the genre, the endless GIFs put out on Twitter as the game was lead to it’s launch got me excited, and should get you excited to. Just be wary that the game is early access, and you are more than anything banking your money on the RageSquid folks to put together something truly special.
P.s. Shoutout to @JackHuddo for putting this on my Twitter feed by retweeting one of the many GIFs out there to spark my interest!
#FitToGame – Fitness & Gaming crossover
Goto.game hosted a Gaming and Fitness Crossover event at #PAXAUS to align both industries into a successful multi-day event supported by multiple brands.
