Ubisoft delays "mass multiplayer outdoor extreme sports game" Riders Republic
Now due later this year.
Riders Republic - Ubisoft's "mass multiplayer outdoor extreme sports game" for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC - will no longer release on 25th February as previously announced, and has been delayed to some currently unspecified point later this year.
Riders Republic, revealed at the tail-end of last year, is something of a spiritual successor to Ubisoft's under-appreciated winter sports effort Steep, albeit with that game's focus on snowy pursuits expanded out to encompass a wide range of different activities - snowboarding, biking, skiing, and wing suit action (both vanilla and jet-powered) - across varied terrain.
Solo and co-op play is supported as players participate in events across Riders Republic's world - stitched together from seven iconic US national parks: Bryce Canyon, Yosemite Valley, Sequoia Park, Zion, Canyonlands, Mammoth Mountain, and Grand Teton - but Ubisoft is very much pushing large-scale competition as a focus, including races with upward of 50 players.
Although Riders Republic was originally scheduled for a 25th February release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One (with Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 optimisations promised), Ubisoft has now made the decision to shift its launch to some time "later this year". This additional time, the publisher explains in a statement posted to its website, "will allow our passionate team to deliver the best fun fuelled experience to our players".
There's no further indication of why a delay was deemed necessary or when Ubisoft might be hoping to get Riders Republic out into the wild, but more information will undoubtedly arrive in due course. "Thank you so much for your support and understanding," the publisher concludes. "Stay safe and get ready to join the madness of Riders Republic soon!".