Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders | Review

Let it snow!

Jon "Sikamikanico" Clarke January 21, 2025Last Updated: January 21, 2025

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Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders is the follow-up to the excellent Lonely Mountains: Downhill from Megagon Industries, swapping out the mountain bikes, suspension and grit of the brilliant original for snow-blanketed mountains, icy rivers and a pair of skis.

Just like it’s predecessor, Snow Riders is all about one thing. Getting from the top of the mountain to the bottom, in as quick a time as possible and with any luck, not suffering any broken bones in the process.

Let’s hit the slopes!

If you’ve not played the first game in this series, you should know it was my personal Game of The Year back when it released, and I’m pleased to say that Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders is just as good as the original, even if admittedly, I don’t like skiing as much as I do biking.

And I have to admit, the transition to skiing did worry me when the game was first revealed. The beauty and sheer variety in locales threatened to be undone in many ways, because skiing requires snow; snow is white, and it kind of has to be everywhere for skiing to work. Despite my reservations, developers Megagon Industries have come through in flying colours.

The gorgeous, low-poly art style returns, the game a beautiful blend of jagged rocks, steep slopes and bold, intricate level design. The colour palette, along with the distinct lack of a soundtrack really does bring a sense of isolation to the game. It’s just you, the wind, the wildlife and that snow covered mountain. And despite everything being covered in snow, they’ve managed to provide a decent amount of variety in biomes. I still don’t like skiing, but it helps that it all looks and feels so fantastic.

And oh god, the snow is really, really pretty. It glitters in just the right way, and I love the way it deforms as you make your way down. The crunch, the wooosh sound as you make that perfect turn with your skis – it looks and feels great to manoeuvre through.

While the camera retains its fixed position with the occasional automated adjustment, a new method of transportation brings with it a whole host of new wrinkles when it comes to the controls. You can still chose to either control your skier with simple left/right controls or via screen-steering. Apparently, me being a screen-steerer makes me some sort of sicko. Let me know what you use!

We now have the ability to do tricks, like grabs, flips and spins, and I’ve got to admit – it does make you feel pretty bad ass to do a great trick, land it and then ski backwards for a bit to cross the checkpoint. In solo mode, they are mostly to show off and look cool, but in multiplayer, you get to look cool in front of friends…or perhaps, your enemies.

Conquer the mountain

Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders supports ultrawide – so you can chill out in style!

With three new peaks to conquer, each with eight slopes divided between two different difficulties to complete, there’s plenty of challenge on offer, and that doesn’t include the inevitable jockeying for position on the leader-boards.

Much like the original, the skis you can equip vary between a nice go-to all-rounder like the VIPER, which is a slalom ski, designed for quick turns and decent speed or something more meaty like the RAM. While slower, you have greater control on the ice and it allows for heavier landings. Each completion time is tracked per slope, per gear, so you can lay the gauntlet down and challenge your buddies however you see fit.

The game retains its addictive, checkpoint grabbing, instant-restart-when-you-inevitably-crash out design and it’s just as wonderful as ever. Getting that perfect run, that exact point to point from one checkpoint to the next is pure, addictive gaming heaven. Slamming into that damned tree that you’d swear wasn’t there before is still infuriating as you watch your player tumble into the snow.

The aforementioned tumbling, and the ragdoll reactions of the player character is great. Actually, let me rephrase, because it’s more than just tumbling – you will slam yourself into rocks, trees, deep snow drifts, It’s funny to watch, and its painful to go through. You will clench your pad in frustration, and just like the first game, you will find yourself screaming profanities when you don’t quite get the racing line you definitely going to nail ‘this time’.

Fun with friends

The big addition here is both co-operative and competitive multiplayer for up to eight players. And my goodness, it is hilarious, brilliant fun. In one mode, players will work as a team to earn as many points with tricks, speed and as fewer crashes as possible. To survive, players can manually place respawn points from a limited pool and even help each other up when someone takes a tumble. Just don’t place a respawn point at the edge of a jump. It leads to nothing good.

For my money though, it’s the competitive races. I spent about around six hours or so playing in multiple sessions over the last couple of days, and I haven’t laughed so much in ages. It’s a particularly savage choice by the developers, allowing everyone that has completed the slope to spectate and watch the person in last place. There was a lot of very friendly banter…or was it cruel jeering?

Whatever mode you play, you’ll earn points towards levelling up, and each new level rewards you with cosmetics to dress your player avatar, from hats, scarves and backpacks, which can be customised with your own preferred colours.

Dare to Fall

Not everything is perfect. While the game has an instant ‘back to the last checkpoint’ button, it’s sorely missing a ‘back to very start’ button for us perfectionists. Additionally, the game has some frustrating latency spikes when players are bunched up together, but on speaking with the developers, they’ve advised they’ve already noticed it and have a fix at hand, so expect a patch to arrive shortly after launch to solve that issue.

The developers at Megagon Industries have done a great job on building on their first game by adding a bunch of excellent new ideas, a fun multiplayer suite and what feels like a great, fresh take on skiing with the tight, responsive controls they’re known for. It’s addictive, thrilling stuff and I can’t wait to hit the slopes as soon as I’ve finished writing this. It’s available on Xbox Game Pass and Steam, and I hope you try it out.

Code for review was kindly provided by the developer.