Games about extreme sports always seem to do it for me. Descenders by dutch studio Ragesquid takes on the downhill bike race genre in a specially generated way. This game was first released about a year ago on Xbox One and Steam and I missed it completely. Luckily the PS4 release is right around the corner to make things right again. A Switch release has also been announced for the near future.
Procedurally generated
If you thought rogue-lite and bike racing couldn’t possibly match… Descenders will surely surprise you. In Descenders, you’ll start in the highlands, go through the forest, past the Canyon, and hopefully reach the peak. Chances are you won’t make it to the peak on your first run. The next time you try, you’ll encounter the same regions but every track will be different. That’s right, Ragesquid made it so that each track is procedurally generated. Getting from the first track to the last will take you about 45 minutes but since it is different each time, you’re in for a different experience.
Choose your own style
It looks to me Ragesquid did their best to make Descenders a fun game for all sorts of thrill-seekers. In each area, you need to reach the boss jump which is presented by a skull icon on the map. How you get there is up to you. After the first race, you get multiple branching paths to choose from. Each race has an indication of steepness, curves, and stunt objects so you can always choose the type of tracks more suitable for your own style. I liked to perform double backflips and 360 tweaked can-cans more than avoiding tree stumps at breakneck speed. The game gives you the option to take a few detours but ultimately pushes you to get to the last track before the suns sets.
At the beginning of each race, you are presented with a random goal to perform while riding the track. These vary from performing certain tricks to reaching certain speeds. Getting these goals gives you back a “life” which comes in very handy. Each bail takes away one life, wasting all your lives means your ‘session’ is over and you’ll need to start over from the start. While performing well on the tracks and earning ‘rep’ you’ll gather crew members who help out in further personalizing your experience. Some of these crew members can make tracks steeper, while others help you get higher bunny hops to get those epic tricks. Sadly you’ll lose your crew members when you waste your last life.
Boss jumps
Each area takes about 6-10 tracks before you have to attempt the boss jump area. The goal in these is to survive the boss jump before you are granted access to the next area. These often acted as life-sponges in my runs. These jumps are quite difficult to land. They all needed to be performed at breakneck speeds and sticking the landing becomes very hard when your bike is wobbling all over the place. There is one crew member I highly recommend getting as soon as you can: The one who limits the speed wobbles. Landing after jumping over a bridge, over a pyramid, over a canyon, … will be much more attainable than before.
Shortcuts and new session plus
Getting to the last area and losing your last life after a few tracks might become frustrating after a while. Luckily Ragesquid implemented a fail-safe system. If you succeeded in completing one area’s boss jump 3 times, you can skip that area and go straight to the next one. This also means you’ll automatically start with tougher tracks and can’t gather a few crew members along the way. As you reach for the peak on each session, you’ll keep gathering ‘rep’. If you collect enough ‘rep’ you’ll unlock 4 new areas which are way better than the original 4. You’ll need to be at your best to conquer these though! A few more runs on the original tracks might be needed to get good enough to be able to tackle the new session plus tracks.
Geared up and multiplayer
The shed is the place to be to change how your rider looks. With each session, you’ll earn different items which can then be fitted on your rider. These offer no real in-game improvements besides looking good. At one point I even earned a bucket to use a helmet. Team nodes during the sessions can be completed to earn special team associated items which have no point besides being able to sport your team’s colors. Multiplayer is also available in the game but the review version I got wasn’t able to showcase that yet. Ragesquid was upfront about that and have promised this would be fixed on the PS4 version’s release.
Conclusion
Besides some minor (non-game-breaking) framerate issues, Descenders runs smoothly. The areas all have a distinctive feel to them and all offer their own challenges. Getting closer to the peak with each go at the game kept me going. The repetitive DnB light music got old really fast but besides that, I had a nice time trying not to break my virtual neck while playing Descenders.
