Coming 'Round the Mountain

A 21-year-old Olympic gold medalist and Ubisoft Montreal have joined forces to make the most ambitious snowboarding game ever conceived. Shaun White Snowboarding might not land until winter, but our exclusive hands-on time left us praying for snow in July.

Remember when racing games were just insular circuits and cordoned sprints? They’ve since grown into full-fledged cities, and they’re better for it. Now it’s time for snowboarding games to evolve from disconnected lists of events into seamless mountain wonderlands. Shaun White Snowboarding is designed from the ground up to make precisely that technological leap while injecting all the youthful personality, exuberance, and humor of its media-darling namesake.

The red-haired superstar’s deep involvement is already paying dividends in the form of an obvious respect for a lifestyle that’s too often reduced to cornball lingo and gnarled caricature. Producer Louis Lamarche says the overriding goal is to “let players experience everything Shaun experiences as he goes down the mountain.” This pursuit of immersion informed everything we saw, heard, and felt as we took ride after white-knuckled ride down an early version of a steep Alaskan monster.

The camera launched skyward as we flew off half-pipes and approached cliffs, translating the powerful sensations and giddy emotions of real-life snowboarding to the gaming world. We made our way from an icy glacier cap, through unmaintained and heavily wooded backcountry, and down to an alpine village’s meticulously groomed performance areas. The naturally blended transitions of the journey take a solid 10 minutes to negotiate, but when you set off yourself, you’re free to carve your own path, just as you would on an expensive trip to a real-life resort.

Revolving Doors
You won’t need to cram buddies and equipment into a vehicle to reach that resort, but you can’t show off your moves if nobody’s watching. Ubisoft wants joining a session in progress to be as natural as the wilderness itself. As you strap on your bindings, you decide: online or off-. Need private time to practice? You’ll share the mountain with a virtual crowd of NPCs who react to your skills (or lack thereof) as you cross paths. Leave the lodge door open, on the other hand, and strangers or privileged members of your friends list can slip into the world. There’s no time wasted in lobbies — just an open invitation to tear up your instanced getaway.

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