This is the first time I’ve ever written something like this before I finish a review, but with Steep, unfortunately it had to be done.
Steep is an open-world extreme winter sports title that combines snowboarding and Skiing as its main control gameplay mechanics alongside less conventional side missions you get such as parachuting and BASE jumping amongst others.
For what I’ve played of it (and I’ll come to that in a bit), Steep is a whole lot of fun with a vast amount filtered throughout its open world to get stuck into. Races, skill events, BASE jumping are some of the great events that make up the vast world. Or, for those that just want to explore, you can do just that as well. The premise of Steep is incredible and it’s something that I’ve wanted since the days of SSX.
Now, here’s the big problem. The game constantly crashes and chucks you right back to the PS4’s dashboard. I’ve had the screen freeze on me on numerous occasions and I’ve also had the game kick me back to the main menu stating that I need to check my network connection (even though I was still signed into PSN without any issues at the time). The worst part of all the problems though is the constant booting you back to the consoles dashboard. I’m not even exaggerating here when I say that since I’ve been trying to review this game (I say that loosely), it has booted me back around 25 times! In one 15 minute section of a session that I’d just started, it happened 3 times. 3 times in 15 minutes! Yeah, that’s not right.
Like I mentioned at the top of this editorial, I’ve never been in this situation with reviewing a game before but it’s really got to a stage where I just can’t do what I need to do. I’ve powered through it hoping it will improve over time (it didn’t) and I’ve checked on numerous occasions to make sure the game has the latest firmware update on it (it did) and yet, it still carried on doing what it was doing regularly. The older versions of the firmware didn’t cause as many crashes and freezes as the latest one has, but the problems have been there from the start but ultimately, it seems to be getting worse with every new update added.
This game needs a big update asap for these crashes and whatnot to go away as underneath the hood is a game that has huge potential (that I’ve been enjoying massively) when I’ve had no issues, but at present, these issues are too frequent and frustrating to even attempt to try and review this game. The optimisation side of Steep needs a few extra licks of paint it seems.
I’m a boarder, and It hurts to say this, but in its current state, Steep is like being atop of a mountain and then looking down and realising you’ve left your board in your chalet. Ultimately you could probably slide down to the bottom on your derrière, but it’s never going to be as fun and that’s exactly how Steep feels right now.
