Lonely Mountains: Downhill is one of my favorite games, a 2019 mountain biking sort of racer/ sort of Zen exploration of a virtual wilderness. Developer Megagon released a skiing-focused sequel called Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders today; a lot of what I loved about Downhill has stayed the same, while trading your bike for skis adds new challenges.
This article originally appeared on 10/15/24 and focused on the Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders demo. We’ve updated it today for the game’s full release, removing mention of the demo and adding impressions of the whole game.
Snow Riders has the same basic premise as Downhill: you start at the top of a mountain and need to get to the bottom. Instead of being a Spandex-clad little person on a little bike, now you’re a snowsuit-clad little person on little skis. The crux of a run is still about navigating a varied landscape, flying off jumps, taking tight turns, and exploring off the main path to try to find the optimal–or at least the most exciting–route down.
Like the first game, there are challenges for finishing trails under a certain amount of time or with a limited number of crashes. Completing these challenges unlocks new trails, either harder versions or completely new routes, and new mountains. They also provide points that level your character up to unlock new skis, alongside a kind of currency to spend on new outfits.
I’ve only unlocked the second set of skis, which feature faster speeds and more stable jump landings than the starter gear. This middling progress is because I spent hours attempting to shave time off a single trail to meet a challenge requirement, constantly coming up fractions of a second short. Being good at Lonely Mountains games requires quick reflexes and confident decision-making, two qualities I very much do not possess. In Snow Riders, all of that is made more difficult thanks to how the depth of the snow affects your speed, as well as new environmental features like ice and pools of water. The snow also gives you more options for how to navigate than Downhill’s generally visible trail; your past attempts on a run leave ski tracks in the powder, which can either help you remember what you did or, in my case, keep tricking you into making the same mistake.
Chasing that perfect run is part of what makes Lonely Mountains games compelling, but it can also be frustrating, especially when you’re eager to see new areas but can’t master the challenge to unlock them. Luckily, Snow Riders includes a “Zen” mode, where you can ski any of the game’s slopes without a time limit. It’s a much more relaxing way to explore the levels, and lets you set your own checkpoints as you make progress. While you don’t level up in this mode, it’s a good place to practice a trail, as well as enjoy Snow Riders’ lovely environments, which you can’t really stop to appreciate during a timed run.
There’s also a multiplayer mode, where you can race other players or ski with a team. I wasn’t able to find a match in my pre-release copy of the game, but I imagine skilled players will make it look very fast and fancy while I spend my time crashing into everyone and ruining their runs.
Both games are fairly simple to control, though Snow Riders adds some new features in the form of tricks you can pull off in the air, like grabs and flips. You can also crouch to increase your speed, vital for pulling off some of the game’s most breathtaking jumps.
I’m happy with how much Snow Riders keeps the vibe I love from Downhill, one of both stress and peaceful exploration, while the snow adds an excellent new element in the form of deep powder and the lovely way your little person sinks into a drift when you crash. Both games situate their camera so a path is often full of surprises, zooming in or pulling out at just the right moment to give you a careful glimpse of what’s coming next while still keeping you on your toes. The sound of the snow, like the whizz of your bike in Downhill, adds a calming vibe to what is often a high-speed game of brutal crashes and chaos.
I love both games’ diorama-esque design, how they’re able to paint such evocative wildernesses with their blocky art style. Even when I'm laser-focused on my goal, or when I've done a run dozens of times, I always feel like there’s some new path or detail to discover or smash into. Snow Riders is out now for PC and Xbox.
