Riders Republic
Genre: Sport-MMO | Developer: Ubisoft | Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S | Release Date: October 28, 2021 | Model: Buy2Play
What kind of game is this? Riders Republic is a sports MMO where up to 50 players can move together in an open game world. This world is inspired by American national parks and looked excellent in the first trailers.
In the game, players can compete in special competitions or just explore the open world. You have access to 5 different sports:
- Bicycle racing
- Snowboarding
- Skiing
- Paragliding
- Rocket wingsuits, which are particularly fast
Highlights include a personal career mode, team modes, and the city playground, where you can move freely in the open world, perform tricks, and chat with other players.
The YouTuber DerSorbus tried out Riders Republic after release:
How is Riders of Republic doing currently? Riders Republic launched on Xbox quite well. At release in the 43rd calendar week, it was in 3rd place in the charts (via GFK). However, interest fell sharply afterwards.
While the announced seasonal content for the first year was activated, there was little ongoing interest. On Google Trends, interest has significantly decreased since the release in October, and overall search interest is only half as high as for Guild Wars 2.
However, we do not have exact player numbers since the MMO was released for several platforms.
That’s why I believe Riders of Republic will die in 2022: Admittedly, this gets a bit experimental and personal. Because I personally had high hopes for the game, and it didn’t bring me any joy. I found the controls very clunky and unintuitive. A control system without a controller was nearly impossible on PC.
My personal disappointment and the absence of hype raise the suspicion that Riders Republic could enter a kind of maintenance mode without updates after redeeming the Year 1 content. Whether it’s enough for a death in 2022 is still debatable.
What about Legends of Aria, Bless Unleashed, and Swords of Legends?
Besides the titles listed here, there are also three other candidates that have the potential for discontinuation but, in my opinion, will not be affected this year.
Legends of Aria was one of the games I thought could die in 2021. However, the game was sold to an NFT company at the end of last year. They will have a fundamental interest in keeping the IP alive at least for now, even if it’s just to sell NFTs with the game and make money. Additionally, an Aria 2.0 has already been announced. This increases the survival chances somewhat compared to Crowfall.
Similarly, Bless Unleashed was sold at the end of 2021 and the new company will also have an interest in making money with the MMORPG after the sale. Thus, a discontinuation in 2022 seems unlikely due to still high player numbers.
Swords of Legends, on the other hand, is still owned by Gameforge and has significantly decreased in player numbers on Steam. However, a major expansion with two new classes and numerous new contents has already been released in China. It will certainly be brought to the West in 2021. Since the player count on Steam is still 21 times higher than that of the recently flopped Kingdom Under Fire 2 – which was discontinued by Gameforge in 2021– I do not expect a discontinuation in 2022.
