Open Beta is live! Shredding gnarly lines is on

Just a heads up for anyone interested in this game, the open beta should be live right now!

I participated in the closed beta and loved the shit out of it. The "core" game/campaign/challenges aren't fantastic, and I kinda didn't like the trick system and the responsiveness of it, but I was still having a blast of a time making my own fun and just relaxing. It very much reminds of "Skate" in that sense.

I also adore the soundtrack

@jacdg: How is the murder? Is there a lot of murder? I still have nightmares about that wingsuit crash from the E3 trailer.

It's glorious. You gain experience in a lot of different categories, one of them is called Bone Collector, so the more you crash into things in high speed the more XP you get in that. There are so many super tight rock formations you can fly through at breakneck speed and it's so tense. Usually you end up very dead.

@jacdg: That's sounds all right by me :)

Downloadin it now, huge install on ps4. Hope to check it out tonight.

I suppose at this point I just want every game of this nature to be an SSX clone. But I'm not really getting into this.

MURDER

also unlike most it seems this looked pretty slick to me, will give it a shot! though my last sorta foray into these type games was 1080 snowboarding...

That's about where I am at. But I will definitely check this out since it is doing something different.

I actually hate the wingsuiting, I wish it was just a snowboard/ski game.

The physics are really weird though, I come with full speed towards a jump and feel I should totally get air off it but I kinda just flop over the edge and get no air.

It just doesnt seem EXTREME enough for me.

Yeah... (then again I didnt like the latest SSX so maybe i'm impossible to please)

Or better yet Amped 4..!

If you press the left stick forward that kinda happens. You need to tuck (press forward) to get up to speed and let go before a jump. Also disabling the trick safety or whatever it's called in the options helps pull off flips and stuff. I have warmed up to that part but the trick stuff is still not as fluid/responsive as I'd like.

Just got around to testing it out, and man... this game... parts of it are absolutely stunning, while other parts are completely confounding. They made a hell of a good snowboard/skiing game. It looks great, it feels great, the idea of a massive free-roam is amazing, but trying to navigate the map/activities is terrible, the pop-ups etc from the "Ubisoft open world" doesn't fit at all, the air stuff is ... fine I guess ? Well, the wing suit at least, don't know what they were thinking with paragliding. But most disappointingly of all, I start from one of the tallest spots I could find and I'm at the bottom of the mountain in what feels like 1-2 minutes. At least it resets back to the start quick, but still..

I'm assuming they geomapped some mountain range, and that's cool I guess, but the scale seems so damn off. If they're not gonna make any custom slopes that feels intricate and interesting all the way down, at least let me ride for a good while to make some discoveries along the way. It just seems like they've wasted a ton of potential and instead made the game into a bunch of miniscule lines (as they like to call them) that you just repeat over and over trying to perfect that 20-40 second ride.

Trial & Error The Video Game

Despite that ridiculous E3 trailer, the 'murder' meme should probably be toned down because a professional skier named Matilda Rapaport actually died in an avalanche while filming promo footage for this game a few months ago.

Bleh, I usually try to meet a game halfway, I don't like judging a game for what it isn't but I just came off replaying SSX3 and it's a stark contrast. The only way I can describe it is stiff, I don't feel connected to the snow in any real way, I feel like a rectangle rubbing against a 3d model not a snowboarder gliding over snow.

The entire game feels a little cheap, I expect more from Ubisoft when it comes to 3rd person controls, why am I getting stuck on tiny rocks 2 cm off the ground? where is my jump button? Why do I have to stop completely then wait a couple seconds to switch modes? Why are rock surfaces so sticky? Feels like the game has no idea what to do with me when I touch anything but snow.

Falling over and having to give up all control for massive stretches of time while I wait for them to stop is not fun, at least lemme wriggle about with some after-touch, navigating the map is awful, the zoom is infuriating as is the slow ass reticle. It's a shame, I really wanted to like it, it's pretty at least.

The ultimate mixed bag. U want to love steep, but it feels pretty weird sometimes. Beautiful game, but no way a day one purchase.

@paulmako: Absolutely. Make a joke or comparison to Skate 3s hall of meat or whatever but someone actually died making promotional material for this game

Played some 20 minutes of it, and it seems..not terrible I guess? I found the wingsuit to be really underwhelming, but the skiing and snowboarding feels alright. There is some lack of sense of speed though. I realize this isn't trying to be SSX, but unless I was racing down one of the steepest points it just felt a bit sluggish.

I'm really confused about your enjoyment of it despite "The 'core' game/campaign/challenges aren't fantastic, and I kinda didn't like the trick system and the responsiveness of it."

Doesn't this sort of game live and die by its gameplay and structure? Unless it's Amped 3?

Nnnnope, it's kinda Amped 3. Steep's strengths lie in the open world and exploration.

It's another one of those social open-world games (I know, yuck), but for me this is maybe the first time that I've actually enjoyed just fucking around without any real goal or sense of purpose. I played last week's beta a lot and while I enjoyed getting a gold medal in all the challenges and doing the Mountain Stories etc., I had more fun finding my own lines, making my own challenges and interacting and riding with other people. Seeing another player suddenly swoop over my head with a wingsuit when I thought I was riding down the mountain all by my lonesome was pretty freaking awesome.

But I do have to say that the game would've benefited from another 3-6 months in the oven. Steep isn't broken (it looks fantastic and actually runs amazingly well on my PC) and there seems to be plenty of content in the full version, but there are a lot of quality of life improvements and additions that could be made.

• The jump timing is particularily strict and it took a good while until I got it down to the point where I could hit the releases reliably, but even still I fuck it up too often.
• I don't really like the G-force system, it sometimes turns the game into stamina management and it sucks when you have to slow down during a fast paced freestyle event.
• There's no fast way to travel up the mountain (aside from fast travel), which makes me disappointed that they didn't include snowmobiles.
• You can't view the ghosts of other people on the leaderboards, and that kind of kills the competitiveness (IMO).
• The trick system could be more versatile (you can't slide/grind, for example), the score multiplier and tally could use a little bit more pizzazz and trick names would be a welcome addition.

Regardless, this might be a day one purchase for me. It sucks that the end of November and early December are packed with big releases and having the same release date with The Last Guardian doesn't help.

Nothing like windkite fail.

Game looks very nice though, liking most parts of it.

Man this just reeaaally makes me want a skate 4, between watching Jeff play it during extra life and the idea of lines in this game it's been a tough week, I don't think I could get into this game just solely based on it constantly making me want to play skate(and I lent my 360 to my nephew after I got my ps4, pretty much the only time I wish I still had it), I really should try to play a little more as I could only stand it for about 25 minutes, it looks nice, but all the complaints in this thread feel spot on, there is something that just doesn't click for me, feels sluggish and it just doesn't grab me...does the mountain open up and have more jumps after you get a little deeper into the game?

Exactly, messing around this world is incredible. Last night I spent an hour at one single spot with my friends just coordinating super awesome stuff with the options, people wing suiting between/over/under people doing tricks, trick lines, flying between a dude and his parachute. It was some of the most fun I have had in a game in a while. Image quality isn't that great but I think people get the gist.

Tried it for maybe an hour and a half and liked some parts of it but disliked a lot more.

The only part I really enjoyed out of the sports was the snowboarding. The wingsuit is whatever, the para-glider is no fun and the skis are like snowboards but lame. The trick system isn't great. I saw people mention it's like Skate in that you just sort of ride around and pull off tricks and lines but I think that's being generous. Yes you do that, but unlike skate there's nothing noticeable. Because of the location - and there's not much they can do about this I guess - it all looks the same. There's no real distinguishing features or landmarks that I came across. The trick system is basically spins and grabs. There's nothing to grind on and because it's not SSX (which is fine) there's no board flips etc.

Getting up the mountain is a chore, getting to peaks is a chore. Getting stuck on terrain is a chore. The weird fences in the middle of slopes are really annoying. They kill your momentum dead which is about the only fun part of the game for me so far.

Trick system is definitely an odd bit in this game. After testing it extensively, the player only has control over when they start stick movement and when they let go, after that, there's no control over the landing. Either the game corrects your positioning into a landing or it doesn't. Multiple times it has accelerated an unfinished barrel roll into a proper landing with no G-force penalty (slow 1.5 rolls then the last 0.5 super fast into a landing). Also, an odd bit is that it recognizes any secondary mid-air stick direction as simply the stick being held down, disregarding the direction. Basically flick left then hold right = flick left then hold left. Tested extensively and both equal the same rotation. Only letting the stick go back into a neutral position affects the rotation. I'm wondering if this is a design decision or a bug.

This auto landing just feels off. On one hand, in real life you do only have control of your momentum just at the beginning of your jump and it's sort of a commitment game, but you also have control over the position of your board upon landing. Taking that control away from the board position and making the game land for you makes the trick system unrewarding to me. It all just feels too easy. I mean, I've barrel rolled off of straight ollies with only a sliver of momentum on nearly flat land. Super odd.

I'm not asking for this game to be a realistic sim, just that the trick mechanics feel off. The rest of the game is pretty damn fun and enjoyable. The design of having an open mountain and finding your own lines is so damn cool.

Ok, played a few more hours, It's grown on me a little. There's a 5 minute orienteering race that I think everyone should try (good luck finding it with that awful map) where things clicked, I understood what they were trying to do with the open world, racing toward an indistinct point in the distance, half exploration/taking in the sights and half race. It's the only time the low-key atmosphere grew into anything tangible. The problem is that's the only race of its type, races in general are pretty fun but I cant find them, I feel like I'm sifting for tiny pieces of gold in a massive heap of trash, 30 mins of searching for 40 seconds of fun.

The trick system is obtuse, I still don't fully understand it (am I supposed to be using the left or right stick? No idea how tweaking grabs actually works), it's also just not fun, it feels passive. Snowboarding still feels mediocre but there's a little something in there.

Ubisoft fixed the crew, if they can do the same here and float the stuff that's actually fun then id be willing to pick it up, a big ask for a game that's going to bomb.

Am i the only one really hating the trick system. Cause i think it's bad and works half of the time. Also a mountain spoke to me .... ( no i am not using any drugs )

I feel really uneasy whenever this game is mentioned because of the E3 reveal and then that stuntwoman crashing and dying while doing promotional work for this game. :/

I gave this a try and was pretty disappointed by it. Two things really killed it for me. First, the trick system just feels bad. Coming from a background of games like 1080, Cool Boarders, SSX, Amped, etc. it feels really bad to not be able to preload your spin before a jump and not be able to do anything if you mess up your launch. That is the opposite of fun. Second, their strange little stamina system that punishes you for going fast and getting huge air or makes you wipe out if you slide on the wrong surface for too long.

They made some really strange design decisions that I don't support because I think they actively hinder fun. The game looks nice enough but it just doesn't feel good.

Having played some more I feel that the G-Force system is too punishing. I'd rather not have it be a rechargeable thing.

To be honest the most fun I've had is trying to KO my character and watching my dude tumble down the cliffs while the sappy piano music is playing. That and the few times I've actually pulled off a longer string of tricks.
I'll keep playing some because its kind of relaxing to just free ride.

I missed the beta this weekend, too busy with other games, but I am really curious about Steep. Sounds like it's dividing people. I love snowboarding games (SSX3 is one of my fave games of all time) and I have a voucher I need to use, so might wait a day or 2 after launch, read reviews and decide if this is for me.

This game feels like the Euro Truck Simulator of extreme sports. I'm digging it but not totally sold on the controls. I really love how open the world is. I'm not a fan of the narrative or dialogue, but I understand the developers are french so maybe that's why all the speech feels fake and unnatural? I'm not sold on the progression either, but at least there are things to unlock. I just don't have a boner for unlocking the stuff because I don't feel I have a reason or real opportunity to show my stuff off to anyone. There doesn't seem to be a sense of community even though you run into people flying down mountains here and there. Unless I'm missing something, there's no way to chat to people or talk to them over a mic.

I loved the beta. That was an awesome time waster game for me. I just put on the chill playlist and went down the hill. The sound of the snow under you is amazing. I could do without the parachuting but whatever, its not why I came to the game for. The rush of flying down the hill and squeaking by tight areas or finding a fun line is great and it looks really good on consoles.

I think this game is going to bomb. Been reading peoples opinions on neogaf and also have watched a couple of streamers play this game (well the free demo). The common opinion seems to be that the controls feel a bit clunky and that the character tends to slow down too much when bumping into something.

@jacdg: Missed the beta so could you tell me, what on earth does XP in crashing gain you?

The beta is over but for some reason it's still installed and I'm unable to uninstall it from Steam. I had no idea about this until I checked my library on my phone. The only solution so far is to just delete the folder from your install location but this has a lot of people upset because of leftover registries.

So to everyone who installed it but didn't uninstall it, it's probably still there.