If you played the first game, Downhill, you know what to expect. Great physics, shortcut hunting, high tension seat of your pants speed thrills, and a lot of fun. Also a LOT of crashing (the hitting rock kind, not the game itself :)

Is this game a masterpiece? Do you love racing down life-threatening slopes in deep snow? Then this is the perfect game for you. Here you can perform the most daring maneuvers against the clock and against your friends - without waking up in the intensive care unit!

One day in the fall of 2019, a game came onto my PC that I had never heard of before. The task was to cycle down a hill. Doesn't sound particularly appealing, at least to me. Plus moderately pretty low-poly graphics. A few days later, I could hardly move my hand from the pain of overuse and had spent many hours playing the game. Its name was Lonely Mountains: Downhill. An absolutely addictive game. Even my son and one of my daughters couldn't escape the addictive spiral and played it for hours on end. Now the successor has been released. Essentially, the task is the same as five years ago - ride down the mountain as quickly as possible without crashing. Only this time on skis and not on a bike.

First, we create our character. Most of the options are not available at the beginning, but you can change your hairstyle, beard, skin color, and voice. The further you progress in the game, the more cosmetic options become available - helmets, anorak, rucksack, ski pants and, of course, the design of the skis. New ski models are also unlocked, each of which behaving differently.

And off you go - always down the mountain. The controls (with the controller) are basically easy - you can dive with the ski poles and crouch down to pick up speed. Braking is also possible (and necessary), and you can also turn while standing and perform all kinds of tricks in the air. The main mode of the game consists of racing down a mountain against the clock. Each course is divided into six sections, and if you fall, you start at the last section.

Your character is a great skier who can make long jumps with ease and race down the slope at high speed. And all this in deep snow - there are no groomed slopes (or computer-controlled other skiers) in the game. What your skier does not like, however, are trees, rocks or other obstacles, or even deep ravines. He never falls after a jump, unless you turn during the jump and land with your skis on the wrong side... or the height difference during the jump was too great. It's fun to watch the most brutal falls - you can't hurt yourself. But it's less fun to keep getting stuck somewhere on a section of the course. It doesn't work without practice. Tight bends only work with a combination of braking and steering. Racing on a flat track is useless and just looks stupid - just like in real life. The only thing that helps here is to dive properly with the poles.

To achieve really good times, you must not take the most obvious (and easiest) way down. It is only possible to achieve the best times by taking shortcuts, daring jumps and using small sneak paths. You will repeatedly come across frozen waters - on which steering and braking is particularly difficult. Just like in the previous game, there are also well-hidden places to rest - often with great panoramic views. However, these are not helpful for achieving a best time. By the time you find them, you'll already be well lost, so you might as well stay put for a while. Sometimes there are also a few easter eggs to discover - like the bike frozen in the ice (probably from the previous game).

There are three mountains, each with four tracks, so 12 ski slopes in total. I assume that more tracks will be added later via DLC. At the beginning, only the first track is unlocked. You now have to complete it in a certain time before the next track is unlocked. This is exactly the same mechanic as in the previous game, although I found it a little easier to unlock track after track there. In Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, the level of difficulty increases quickly. Of course, it takes a few attempts to complete a route in the given time, but with some routes I initially thought I'd never manage it. In addition to the minimum requirements to unlock the next slope, there are also more difficult goals to achieve (number of falls, even faster) - which then unlock new items - or the black slope. Each slope (blue) has a more challenging variant (black). However, this must first be unlocked. Incidentally, the blue slope has little to do with a blue slope in real life - in the real world, the blue slopes would also be closed, life-threatening areas (especially because of the ravines) on which only insane extreme athletes voluntarily race down at full speed through the deep snow.

In the previous version, you only raced against the clock, there was no online mode. There were only extensive online leaderboards to compare your times with the times of other players. These online leaderboards are also available this time, and they are already full of the times of thousands of players - almost all of whom have driven better than me on most tracks. But hey, I've only been playing for a few hours! The biggest news, however, is the online mode. Up to eight players can race down the mountain at the same time - it's great fun, especially with your friends! In addition to the normal single-player mode and the online multiplayer mode, there is also a Zen mode. Here you can take a look at all the mountains without any time pressure. However, you won't get any times, points or unlocks. But it is fun for exploring the area.

Conclusion:
Just as addictive as its predecessor. It's simply fun to ride down the mountain and improve your times (each section of the course is measured and saved individually). You don't need to know much about skiing (but that doesn't hurt either), the controls are intuitive and easy to understand. But that doesn't mean the game is unchallenging - without knowledge of the routes and a considered approach (always shooting is deadly) you will never reach the bottom in one piece. Once you have completed the most obvious route to the bottom, the next time you start the game, the search for possible route optimizations begins - how can you get to the bottom even faster? Any shortcut is allowed! Lots of unlockable items and other cosmetic options, online leaderboards and the new online multiplayer mode provide long-term entertainment.

Tough one.

Im breaking down why negative as of now, with the potential to change later.

The game was purchased for 22.49€. At that price i was roughly done with 60% of the games content after only 1.3 hours.
It only features 3 mountains, with 4 tracks each and 2 slopes for each track.
A slope is only a slightly different variation of a track, which is something i found an odd design choice, as most of the fun you had in Downhill (the mountainbike prequel) was finding new shortcuts and alternative routes, sometimes completely dependant on the bike you chose and more often than not you had several routes down a hill, that played entirely different.
You could combine these routes and their shortcuts, to find doezns upon dozens of possible paths to the goal.

You have a few shortcuts here too and some are also "blocked" if you dont use the respective ski, however, not only did i find that sometimes stuff isnt working as intended, the shortcuts also barely seem to matter and i get to why soon.


What sometimes doesnt seem to work as intended, are the ski.
In Downhill your bikes had clear abilities and styles that made them distinct from each other.
One was super sturdy for jumps which allowed you to take tough shortcuts, another was incredible on rough surfaces allowing you to pick paths the other bikes could absolutely not take.
Here i played on a track that featured ice in an area i lost most of my time getting through, so i unlocked the Ski (Ram) that said, they would give me more control on ice sections.
I picked them and did the same track again, to improve, only to find out, they wouldnt allow me any control on ice, neither did i get any more speed on ice from them.
They played pretty much exactly as the other equipment i used at that point.
After already unlocking 4 of the 6 ski you can pick from, i struggle to see any major difference in their playstyles.
Sure one is slightly better to steer and the other is slightly better for jumps, but not really and especially not in a way that their differences allowed entire new routes or playstyles.
The peak was picking ski that should go better over water, only to directly drown at the next puddle, that i could later cross with other Ski that have a weakness to water.

Now to continue on the most important point, as to why the shortcuts dont matter here:
The challenges are laughable.

I played for only 14 minutes and finished the first 3 tracks with their two slopes, breezing through the only 3 challenges per track.
The challenges are not only easy as hell (and i consider myself being not very good at both games), they are also all the same.
Get through the track in timeframe X (pretty generous timeframe), get through with less than X crashes, get through in timeframe Y with less than X crashes (slightly less generous time, but still noob level).
I did NEVER need to pick a shortcut to beat the challenge times.

Downhill had several challenges that at least varied what you had to do, like having to get down to the goal without crashing once, removing all checkpoints.
Or you had to do challenges with a specific bike.
You wont find that here.
Not only that, there wont be new challenges you unlock (as you did in the previous game), after you beat the really easy ones.

That means you play each track once, beat the 3 challenges in your first go, at the most after your 3rd attempt, and thats it for the track, no reason to replay in terms of challenges.
What im missing here is the game giving me these challenges, let me beat them, then throwing tougher ones at me, to constantly challenge my skill for each mountain and track, trying new equipment and routes, having me to explore to find the optimal path with my playstyle.
Thats all gone.
Nothing of what made Downhill so challenging is to be found here, which is the core reason why im thumbin down.

Some Pros:
The game looks great.
It feels fast and the map design seems interesting.
Sound is nice (yet, still no music tracks)
Coop/PvP is an absolute highlight and should have been mandatory for Downhill too (i hope they add far more options, modes and modificators to those modes).


All in all, the game provides the bare minimum, but what breaks its neck is the lack of content, lack of challenge proposed and thus the lack of replayability.
Im easily motivated to run down the same hill/mountain over and over, as i did with Downhill, playing a challenge for like 2 hours straight on the same track to get the best time and beat a challenge, to then unlock a new bike.

But here, theres none of that and thus no reason to replay a mountain after i finished the challenges, which again took me 1.3 hours to beat about 50% of the game (im at the second of 3 mountains, finished 3 of 4 tracks with both slopes each, which means i have 5 tracks left. Thats like an additional hour at most and i have beaten all challenges.).

For 22,5€ thats just not a lot. For 10€? Instant recommendation, would have bought two keys even.
But now, i have a hard time recommending it to strangers for that price, let alone a friend to pay that price for only 12 tracks to play on.

It hurts and i wont refund, because despite that, i love the gameplay. Heres me hoping the devs will add a ton more content especially in terms of challenges.
As it cant be that i only need like one attempt to finish all challenges of a track as a total noob.

I dont need a carrot on a stick to motivate me playing, i need a stick poking my pride to come back and beat the hell out of it.
Snow Riders has the former via Skin unlocks, but lacks the latter with its too easy challenges.



Edit:
I beat all challenges the game has to offer after 2,9 hours.

Which includes stuff like menu scrolling and me going through one track with easily 10 attempts because i challenged myself to go a specific route i wasnt allowed to use to cheese the track (successfully), which took easily 20 minutes (pretty much the timeframe i needed to complete an entire mountain out of 3).

This means i have completed all the singleplayer content.

While playing i also noticed, that the game doesnt feature a night mode too, compared to Downhill, which added a good amount of replayability and challenge.
Your dude could have come with a headlamp to provide the necessary light.
Mind, i had fun riding down the mountains, especially the third one has some really fun tracks (Spiral Mountain).
Yet i am missing singleplayer content.

If you happen to have one or more friends willingly play the game with you in multiplayer, you possibly get some additional hours out of it.
But be reminded that i spent over 9 hours in Downhill and didnt finish all available content, havent unlocked all bikes and not played all tracks in night mode.
The games content thus is severely lacking and i recommend to wait for a large sale or substantial additions.

I am going to leave this review negative until the dev adds a yeti that chases you.
(Just kidding - but please do that because it would be awesome!)

Exquisite, just like their first game. But with a lot of key differences that replace some features with brand new ones for a much more focused experience.

The new key highlights being a leveling system for unlocks,
a trick system,
online multiplayer
and many small improvements like personal ghost data.

Mechanically the skiing feels eerily familiar in its fidelity to the bikes of Lonely Mountains: Downhill, but at the same time vastly different and more complex. First of all there is no stamina to speed up. Instead you get to crouch down indefinitely to reach top speeds at the expense of turning capability. Turning in general is a much more nuanced mechanic that depends not just on the type of ski you are riding, but also how much you are leaning forward, how much you are braking, how fast you are and how deep the snow you are riding through is. This alone makes all skis both perfectly controllable, but also feel very different. And on top of that you can rotate around and go backwards at any time, do tricks during a jump, ride over water and influence your jump length by spreading your skis to glide further or tuck in to drop faster. And of course there are also icy surfaces.

You get to perform all of this in 4 different modes. Two single player offline, two multiplayer online.

The classic time trial challenges. There are 3 mountains, 4 trails per mountain and 2 slopes (black and blue) per trail - for a total of 24 slopes to ride. Each slope has 3 challenges. One for beating a target time, one for finishing with a maximum amount of crashes and one combining both. Clearing a challenge unlocks the next trail, clearing all 3 unlocks the black slope of this trail. That one has different obstacles, making you ride a more challenging path down the mountain.

With each cleared challenge you also gain experience to level up as well as currency to spend in the cosmetics shop (this is in game only). Levels from solo mode challenges go up to 25 and over that course unlock the online races, all 4 specialized skis, more grab tricks as well as more cosmetics to purchase.

A highly requested feature on the previous game and very welcome way to explore the mountains.
This mode allows you to place down and move your own checkpoint to explore the trail from. It sports clear weather and no obstacles, making both blue and black slopes of the trail accessible at the same time.

Here you can host, join or enter public racing lobbies with up to 8 players, currently including crossplay with Xbox.
In private lobbies the host can pick 4 trails to ride in a sequence and whether they will be the black or blue slope.
Public lobbies randomly pick 3 slopes to ride in a sequence.

At the end of each race, every player is awarded experience and currency based on placement as well as 6 badges that award the fastest player, the most crashes, the fewest crashes, the most tricks, the longest backwards riding and longest jump. Players that finished a race can either spectate the remaining racers or ride around a little unique hill area at the bottom of each trail.

This one is collaborative! Similar to Zen mode, you get to ride on the whole trail - but you have a limited collective amount of checkpoints you can place down manually. In addition to that you have a shared score goal with 3 tiers. Riding backwards, over water, very fast and doing spins, flips and grabs increases your collective score. Doing so in close proximity to each other gives a bonus on top. Touching a checkpoint secures the accumulated score, crashing and respawning forfeits it. But players can rescue each other after a crash instead.

At the very end, everyone is rewarded based on the reached goal as well as 6 unique badges similar to the racing mode.

Unfortunately this mode is not timed and you can keep returning back to a previous checkpoint to secure your score. Repeating that makes reaching the highest goal somewhat trivial and does not allow for meaningfully comparing team performances.



Things form the previous game that did not make a return on release:

• free rides (time trial with no checkpoints)
  
• night rides (free rides in the dark)
  
• daily rides (this also did not exist on release of the previous game though)

Another fantastic game! Level design, art style, sound design and vibes rivalling LM Downhill. Devs please add snowboarding!

To the team responsible for placing loose boulders around the map: I'll see you freaks in the Hague.

Game is awesome but I do have some complaints so I'll get those out of the way

#1 is probably more of a me problem but the turn to multiplayer may have prevented the single player content from being better (hit me with the jester awards, idc) - I know there will probably be some additional challenges, free and cheap dlc, just like the first game but I have to judge based on the launch content.

I completed all 24 challenges for the 3 mountains in about 5 hours (my playtime beyond that is from messing around in multiplayer) - maybe some of what I learned in the first game transferred over but these challenges seem way easier than its mountain biking predecessor.... so I guess that's my second complaint.

Also, it's ironic that a game with "lonely" in the title, originally focused around solitude and meditative gameplay, has shifted its focus to multiplayer. I think its a cool addition but I'm really hoping for improvement to single player content in future updates. (Please add "free run" or whatever it was called in the first game where you had to make it from top to bottom without any checkpoints!)

One more complaint about the multiplayer ... please add a better explanation for the team mode (maybe on the screen where you are picking the mode?) as people don't seem to understand we are sharing checkpoints. I just played 3 runs with different groups where all the checkpoints were placed near the top of the mountain somewhat close together.

Also the ski choices are kinda disappointing when I compare them to what I remember about the mountain bikes from the first game. The 2nd pair of skis in the game ended up being what I wanted to use most of the time because the faster skis have terrible handling which rely on braking too much which really screws up the momentum. I get that they have their special uses and I definitely will be looking into what kind of shortcuts/faster runs they "unlock" but I haven't found them that much fun to use so far. I remember having much more fun trying out different bikes in the first game.

The main reason I have these complaints is because I'm a huge fan of the first game and I'm also a huge fan of snowboarding/skiing games so my hopes were really high. It's still a great game! The visuals, physics, and well designed maps with incredible attention to detail and many different paths to take all match up to the quality of the first game.

Despite my complaints I'd still give this at least a 7/10 and with a few updates and some cheap (or hopefully free) content additions this could easily jump up to a 9/10 for me.

Again, this review is mainly for people who are like me and prefer single player experiences - I'm going to play some more multiplayer and give it more of a shot because I'm sure there's fun to be had.... but please devs.... improve the single player experience. Give me more to do!! For 25 bucks there should be more to do solo

This is a great game! Just like the predecessor it captures the essence of the sport perfectly, while being arcade enough to be accessible for everyone. beautiful atmosphere, smooth controls, challenging & cozy at the same time. If just more games would be as skillfully and passionately crafted as this one.

I definitely recommend to buy it.

Slightly ranty positive review incoming. This is all based on solo play - I played a bit of multiplayer racing in the demo but nothing in the released game.

I like this game quite a bit, I have probably about 100 hours in Lonely Mountains Downhill across steam and playstation and was greatly anticipating this sequel. I think skiing is a natural evolution on the lonely mountains formula and I have zero complaints about its implementation in this game. The controls feel smooth and natural, the slops are all incredibly well designed and beautifully decorated, and the addition of multiplayer + tricks adds a lot of fun moments to the game.

I really just have 1 complaint which I never thought I would have about a Lonely Mountains game. It's... it's just way too easy. I don't mean that the slopes are too easy to navigate, but just that the challenges which the game presents you with don't provide much challenge. I would consider myself a strong player but not an incredible player and I full cleared all challenges on my first try on at least 75% of the slopes, and I think there was only one that took me more than 2 attempts. It took me under 5 hours to complete all the content in the game. There might actually not have been any. I don't think there is a single trail I could say that about in Downhill (partially because the game requires you to play each trail many times just to unlock its challenges, I'm not sure that system needs to return though).

Lonely Mountains Downhill has a challenge on every single trail to complete it at night with only a headlamp with no checkpoints. There is nothing that even comes close to that in Snow Riders. There is a "zen mode" which doesn't contain checkpoints except for... you can create your own checkpoints. This is great for practicing lines to get better times except the game doesn't really present much reason for you to get better times. I might try to get slightly better leaderboard times if i'm bored with other games but that isn't a super motivating system to me. I could play multiplayer but I don't have friends who have the game and queuing in with randoms of random ability levels doesn't sound all that enjoyable either.

I'm really itching for the game to give me further challenges. The base game that they have really doesn't need much adjustment, just give me more times to beat with low deaths, I want a reason to develop mastery of these slopes to the same extent that Downhill challenged me to master those trails.