Video games just don't understand extreme sports

Extreme sports have evolved but video games are yet to grasp that.

The early 2000s were interesting. Rap rock, Sobe Life Water, fat-tongued Etnies shoes, Jackass, and more. Extreme was in, and by extreme, I mean extreme. Extreme colors, extremely baggy clothes, putting one’s body through extreme pain through increasingly dangerous sports. Extreme sports culture – skateboarding, BMX, snowboarding, surfing, dirt biking, etc. – got painted into a corner. Go big or go home. Didn’t land the trick? No problem. You fell hard enough and maybe got a compound fracture so that clip will still end up on Ebaumsworld. 

Like all things, extreme sports have changed. They no longer reflect the early 2000s. They’re more inclusive than ever, more diverse, less focused on extreme tricks and painful clips, but rather on fun and fostering a chill, understanding community – of course, there is still progress to be made, but they’ve changed and they’ve done so for the better. But video games have failed to understand that. To video games, extreme sports are still sunkissed brainless jocks who like to jump out of planes with a parachute. 

Not all video games still see extreme sports as a product confined to the vibes of the early 2000s. The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Remake showed that extreme sports games can change and reflect the current, more progressive nature of these communities and cultures. Skater XL is also a great example, but that game is pared down to just skating so there isn’t even a chance for extreme annoyance to sink in. Sadly, these games are outliers. 

From the early days of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater to the MX vs. ATV series, video game portrayals of extreme sports have almost always been out of touch. Early games in both series came out at a time where their extreme vibes actually matched the cultures themselves, for worse and, uh, worse. As each series continued, they didn’t change in that regard. In some ways, each game got more extreme. And now they might as well be parodies of themselves and of the cultures and communities they seem to want to (in some part) represent. Skateboarding culture, which is the extreme sports community that I’m the closest to (I’ve been skating for 15 years) is a far cry from what it once was. It is laid back and most skaters I know are some of the more quiet, mild-mannered people in my social circle. They aren’t Red Bull-chugging, Airheads-eating uber-bros, but alas, gaming just sees that as the norm and they extend it to every extreme sport. You can enjoy tricking your brain into doing incredibly dangerous things without having to act like Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High but if he had a death wish. You can just be normal. Most extreme sports folks I know are just chill, normal people that also enjoy BMXing down mountains or boardsliding a massive rail. 

Games get this wrong for a lot of reasons and I won’t ruminate on how or why because I am not a developer, and I’m not in pitch meetings or writing rooms for these games, but I can say that they’re often always out of touch. It is what it is. I’ve come to accept it, but sometimes a game gets it so massively wrong that I am left speechless. The biggest travesty in recent memory in relation to colossally dropping the ball when it comes to portraying extreme sports (beyond the sports themselves) is Ubisoft’s Riders Republic. This game doesn’t just not understand extreme sports culture, it actively feels like it was written and ideated by a room full of the “how do you do, fellow kids” memes. It is bewildering. The writing, overall vibe, and what few characters there are all feel ripped out of an X-Games ad or energy drink ad from 2001. Putting into words just how off it all feels is hard to do, but the game features characters who use the word ‘shiznit’ more than once, and it also has a ukulele cover of Coolio’s ‘Gangsta’s Paradise.’ 

Outlining each instance where Riders Republic had me rubbing my temples would be far too long, and I don’t want to incessantly kick the game into the dirt. In many ways, I really enjoy Riders Republic. Playing each extreme sport in the game feels incredible and seeing a lovingly rendered version of downhill mountain biking in a triple-A game is, in all honesty, something I thought I’d never see. But here we are at a crossroads where the road forks between playing Riders Republic and listening to Riders Republic. That’s where the frustration sets in.

Engaging in each sport might make you feel like this game is going to get it right, that it’ll finally be the extreme sports game that understands these cultures and communities at a broad scale. Instead, it implies a fictional world where there is an, uh, Republic of Riders where thousands of extreme sports athletes have made camp in the wilderness and just partake in what they enjoy, but the game always gets in the way of that joy. Someone is always trying to talk to you and whenever a character opens their mouths, nothing good comes out. It feels like a parody, a 40-hour joke that has no punchline. Why do games insist on always falling into parody in relation to extreme sports culture? Or is this what they really think these communities are like? Maybe they think it is funny (it isn’t), or maybe they think this approach is what people enjoy because it is what has always been there (it isn’t). I can’t imagine anyone enjoying what this game has to say or make you hear in regards to both dialogue and music.

Riders Republic is a tone-deaf exercise in creating a broad pastiche of what extreme sports are. They nail it with the sports themselves but it is everywhere else that it falls apart. And they even fall prey to the ‘Big Corporate Sponsorship’ mentality that has permeated extreme sports since day one. Big brands make money and get new market share from extreme sports but that money rarely ever finds its way back into the pockets of extreme sports athletes, extreme sports stores, and the like. Yes, there are exceptions. In skateboarding, we have a saying: ‘skater supporting skaters.’ That comes as pushback against huge companies muscling their way into these industries and killing the athlete-owned brands. Riders Republic falls prey to that in-game because, like, 90% of the game’s events are sponsored by big brands. That is certainly a choice to make and it is that one choice that makes me the saddest. Riders Republic, and most extreme sports games, take an outside-looking-in approach to representing extreme sports culture, and of course, all they see is the big brands because that’s what the big brands want – they want total dominance. Riders Republic asks players to dominate the game’s races, challenges, trick courses, and more. There is fun to be had there, there really is, but go ahead and mute your TV. Trust me, this game’s music and characterization just isn’t the shiznit. 

Written by Cole Henry on behalf of GLHF.