Ubisoft’s Steep is a daredevil sim for winter sports

Ubisoft is launching a new extreme winter sports game dubbed Steep. It combines the majesty of gigantic mountains in the Alps and extreme sports such as paragliding and wingsuit acrobatics.

Igor Manceau, the creative director at Ubisoft’s studio in Annecy, France, said the game has been in the works for two-and-a-half years as a passion project at the studio, which is based near the French Alps. Annecy is 30 kilometers away from Mount Blanc, one of the highest peaks. And it’s also a center for action sports. Steep will have players racing down the mountain in a variety of ways. During its on-stage demonstration, Ubisoft showed a skydiving race as well as snowboarding — all of this happens online where you can play with your friends or with strangers that you run across in real-time.

The open world is set on a mountain on the border of four alpine countries. It started with a demo that a small team started building based on other open world landscapes from Ghost Recon: Wildlands. After prototyping for a while, the team had something pretty cool in terms of a new open world.

“It’s a brand-new intellectual property, starting with a demo built from Ghost Recon: Wildlands and action sports,” Manceau said. “That by itself was not enough. There is nothing like having awesome and crazy moments that you can share on YouTube.”

Steep is a mountain action sports game. It will have four different winter sports: wingsuit flying, paragliding, skiing, and snowboarding.

“You can push your limits, test your skills, compete with the community, and share your experiences with friends,” Manceau said. “It’s a place for personal expression. Every line will be unique. Every player will get a chance to share something unique and share it with the world.”

The game will be about overcoming your fears. The team has consulted with numerous alpine skiers and extreme sports stars, such as Louis Aikins, Kevin Rolland, Sammy Luebke, and Horacio Llorens.