Ubisoft's extreme sports game Riders Republic is having a Free Trial week starting Thursday
Play for up to four hours over seven days.
If you've found yourself tantalised by Ubisoft's upcoming extreme sports game Riders Republic, but not so much that you're quite ready to commit, you might like to get involved in the newly announced Free Trial week, giving players up to four hours with the full game ahead of launch.
Riders Republic, a spiritual successor to 2016's underrated Steep, expands on the open-world winter sports action of that game to usher in a fuller roster of activities. There's skiing, snowboarding, biking, and wing suits (of the vanilla and jet-powered varieties), playable both solo and competitively, with Ubisoft's heavily pushing the game's large-scale competitions for upward of 50 players.
All this unfolds on a map stitched together from seven iconic US national parks - Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Grand Teton, Mammoth Mountain, Sequoia Park, Yosemite Valley, and Zion - making for some welcome environmental diversity.
Ubisoft has given players the chance to put Riders Republic through its paces a number of times already, first in the form of a closed beta and more recently as a 24-hour test on PC. And while the newly announced free trial week - which runs tom 21st-27th October on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC - won't pack in anywhere near as much playtime, it's considerably more convenient for those with a busy schedule.
Participants can play for up to four hours in total across the seven-day event, trying their hand at all five of Riders Republic's sports careers, available both solo and competitively across all the game's multiplayer modes. Mass Race is the flashy one, dropping a new race for upward of 50 competitors onto the map every 30 minutes. It's joined by Versus Mode, where players can challenge up to five friends in any career event, alongside the 6v6 Tricks Battle - in which teams attempt to score the most points by performing tricks - and Free for All mode, featuring a playlist of events for up to 12 competitors.
Ubisoft says any progression made during Trial Week will carry over to any edition of the full game, should players decide to make a purchase when Riders Republic launches for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and Stadia on 28th October.