Grab your board, tighten your bindings, and brace for impact because Descenders Next is here to launch you headfirst into a sprawling, procedurally generated playground of snow-capped peaks, dirt-choked trails, and gravity-defying stunts. This early access evolution of the beloved extreme sports franchise doesn’t just expand the terrain—it redefines it, blending snowboarding, mountainboarding, and a whole lot of chaos into a single, slick package. Whether you’re carving down icy ridges or grinding through neon-lit parks, Descenders Next invites you to master the mountain, one wipeout at a time.

Descenders Next Preview Pros

• Decent graphics. 
• 19.87GB download size. 
• Steam achievements. 
• Graphics settings – quality preset, fullscreen, resolution, refresh ratio, v-sync, anti aliasing, SMAA, Level of detail, shadows, terrain quality, terrain detail distance, depth of field, bloom, and ambient occlusion. 
• Units of measurement option. 
• Offline mode. 
• Full friend’s list integration. 
• Dualsense controller (PlayStation 5) support. 
• Opening tutorial section, which is optional. 
• Snowboarding gameplay. 
• Each location has a rating for steepness, curves, and stunts. 
• Basic character creator and emote setup. 
• Three teams to apply to – Arboreal, Enemy, and Kinetic. Each has unique rewards and unique admission objectives. 
• World map level select. 
• Safe sessions on the map allow you to bank what progress you have made. 
• Run-based roguelike approach like the first game, you have x amounts of bails (lives) and losing them all ends your run. 
• Locations get randomised every run. 
• Every location gives you a cool flyover of the place. 
• Within each location, you will be given an optional one or more list of objectives and completing these gives self-satisfaction, and gives you one health, which in turn earns more bails. 
• The sense of speed is incredible and feels a lot faster than the previous game. 
• You are able to do tricks like grinds, grabs, etc, and at your disposal, you have the ability to speed up, slow down, Ollie (jump in the air basically) and cut tight turns and tuck, which makes you even faster whilst sacrificing control. 
• The tricks bang up on the side as you pull them off, and a combo counter will pop as you do tricks in succession. 
• Get landing ratings. 
• Checkpoints are pink flares in the level, so when you bail, you can choose to restart or retry. A green flare shows the finish line. 
• All the locations are huge, and you have a lot more freedom to carve your own path. 
• The game handles well, took a while to grasp tricks and timing, but the controls are tight like you would need. 
• At the end of each location, you get a time and score earned breakdown. 
• The game has maintained its just one more go mentality, and of anything, it’s stronger here. 
• You can view and edit replays of runs. 
• Set your stance to regular or goofy. 
• The game does run really well; I had minimal pop-ups or slowdown, which is impressive when you consider the speed of it all. 
• An arcade presentation to it all. 
• Full session (run) breakdown showing everywhere you went, the score and the time. 
• Earn two lots of currency as it were – reputation, and descents. You earn it at the end of a run. 
• The shop is where you spend dollars on new gear for your boarder – headwear, outerwear, gloves, pants, footwear, and bindings. 
• Unlock parks which are more sandboxy, as you have no limits on bail, and you get a list of objectives, and you can freely go around and tick them off. 
• Emotes are tied to the d-pad. 
• Forgot to mention it’s two disciplines at the moment, which are snowboarding and mountain boarding, but new ones are to be added over time.
• This is being billed as the de facto game as more and more disciplines over time, and it will be a game that just keeps on giving.

Descenders Next Preview Cons

• You cannot remap the controls. 
• The game starts with you jumping straight into a run, then afterwards you go into another one, the issue there is you don’t get told about creating your own character, applying to teams or anything, and I only found them after backing all the way back to the main menu. 
• There is no beard option, so this is unacceptable. 
• No benchmark test for the graphics. 
• There aren’t any accessibility options like Colourblind, text size or any way to simplify or make the controls and tricks easier. 
• Learning the tricks, as I mentioned, is a tough entry requirement, but everyone will figure it out in their own way; it’s more timing than anything. 
• There isn’t like a story or any setup to what you are doing there or anything. 
• You can check the controls for tricks, but it would be cool to have a menu entry for tricks. 

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Descenders Next

Official Website: 

Developer: RageSquid

Publisher: No More Robots

Store Link:

Steam Early Access