The release of Ubisoft’s Steep in early December was met with lukewarm praise. While the experience of screaming down a mountainside was fresh and exhilarating, many reviewers cited sloppy controls and lack of progression, as well as some niggling technical issues.*
Update 1.04 brings in some features the community has be calling for, as well as fixing a raft of bugs. The entire list can be found here, but I will highlight some of the more exciting additions and improvements.
*I actually refunded the game on Steam due to game-breaking connectivity problems.
There are two main community-focused additions; ‘Steep World Tour’, and ‘Community Challenges.’ Steep World Tour is a recurring tournament open to all players, while the Community Challenges are – as the name suggests – challenges created by the community. These can be found on the new ‘Live Page.’
Also, there will be a brand new ‘Director Mode’ giving more freedom in Replay Mode for those film-makers amongst us, as well as the option to hide the HUD.
The biggest gameplay change is in the G-force System. According to Ubisoft; “Some riders expressed confusion concerning how/why they would fall while riding. The biggest hits will now activate the black-and-white dizziness state rather than triggering a fall, as was previously the case. The next hit, however, will trigger a fall.”
There are a number of smaller details you can trawl through at your leisure, using the link above. There are a large number of bug fixes, as tend to be in early patches, but I just wanted to assure you that, apparently “The player will lose the ability to change or play any sport after manually entering ragdoll state inside the wicker basket of a hot air balloon.”
Which is a shame because that sounds like fun.