SNOW
SNOW is an open-world winter sports simulator set on a massive shared mountain, built around speed, exploration, and style. Whether you are chasing clean lines down groomed runs or hunting for natural features off-trail, the game focuses on carving, airtime, and trick variety, with friends and challenges providing the main motivation to keep dropping in.
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Publisher: Poppermost Productions Playerbase: Low Type: Winter Sports Simulator Release Date: March 02, 2014 Pros: +Fluid sense of speed and handling. +Huge mountain with multiple routes and parks. +Deep trick options for scoring runs. +First-person view available for immersion. +Convincing snow and impact audio. Cons: -Ragdoll crashes can look awkward and unpredictable. -Requires DirectX11. -Noticeable bugs and instability in places. |
SNOW Overview
SNOW is an open world winter sports title that drops you onto an enormous mountain and lets you ride it your way, aiming for clean descents, big air, and stylish trick strings. You can cruise down wide, forgiving slopes, hit built features in park-like areas, or cut straight into the trees to find your own lines, with the constant risk that a mistimed turn ends in a dramatic tumble. The game also leans into personal expression, letting you outfit your rider with recognizable, brand-style gear so you stand out when sharing the mountain with other players.
Scoring and progression are tied to how you ride. As you link jumps, spins, grinds, and solid landings, you build points and complete objectives that encourage you to explore different terrain types and practice new techniques. It is the kind of game where the “route” is whatever you can safely survive, and the best moments often come from improvising a line and sticking the landing.
SNOW Key Features:
- Open-world – descend a persistent, shared mountain, free-riding alongside other players or racing down similar lines.
- Character customization – personalize your rider with distinctive equipment and outfits to create a recognizable look.
- Various Events – take on structured challenges and competitive activities that test speed, control, and trick consistency.
- Ragdoll physics – wipes outs send your character cartwheeling down the slope, sometimes funny, sometimes painful.
- Tricks – chain spins, grabs, and rail grinds across ramps, pipes, and natural terrain for big scores.
SNOW Screenshots
SNOW Featured Video
SNOW Review
SNOW sets out to capture the feel of moving fast on snow, balancing a more grounded sense of momentum with the spectacle of freestyle tricks. At its best, it delivers a convincing flow state, carving into a slope, popping off a lip, and landing into another turn without losing speed. At its worst, technical issues and inconsistent behavior interrupt that rhythm, making it hard to fully trust the game when you are trying to improve.
First Impressions and Setup
The first thing you notice is the presentation of the menus, which lean into a clean, tile-like layout. It looks modern and readable, but the interface can be unreliable, with prompts that do not always respond correctly. Once you are actually on the mountain, though, the game makes a stronger case for itself. Snow surfaces show visible tracks, the environment has solid detail for a large play space, and the overall look sells the idea of being out on an expansive, cold landscape.
Controls are approachable in the sense that you can start moving immediately, but building consistency takes time. Part of that learning curve is intentional, since speed and edge control matter, but part of it comes from moments where input and animation do not line up cleanly. Turns can behave oddly, braking may feel inconsistent, and some jump interactions do not always produce the posture you expect. When it all cooperates, SNOW can create genuinely great highlights, either a clean trick sequence you planned or a chaotic crash that becomes its own kind of entertainment.
Modes and Mountain Flow
SNOW is split into four main ways to play. Free Roam is the relaxed option, letting you explore, teleport between Drop Points, and learn terrain without pressure. Challenges provide time-limited objectives that push you to ride precisely and efficiently. Events focus on specific disciplines in dedicated areas, such as scoring-heavy rail sessions or freeride-style runs that judge a mix of pace and execution. Multiplayer, meanwhile, places you into servers with up to 12 players, turning the mountain into a social space where you can ride together, compare lines, and watch what others attempt.
The mountain itself is the main attraction. SNOW’s primary play space, Sialia, is large enough to support long descents and varied terrain, with different zones that encourage different styles of riding. You can choose to begin from the North or South side, then improvise from there, cutting between trails, parks, cliffs, and more open lines. The game does enforce consequences for mistakes, since crashes generally send you back to the last checkpoint, and in Multiplayer a wipeout is treated as a “death” that leaves behind a tombstone marker. That structure makes clean riding feel rewarding, even if it can be frustrating when a bug causes a fall you did not earn.
Scoring, Progression, and Style
Across modes, a visible point counter tracks your performance. You earn points through distance, time, solid landings, and tricks, while penalties come from resets, deaths, and sloppy impacts. As you accumulate points you level up and gain Credits, which function as the premium currency for purchases and for accessing certain special events.
Customization is handled through the Shop, which includes real-world brand gear. These items are cosmetic, they do not change stats or provide gameplay advantages, so the system is about identity rather than optimization. Prices can be steep, but the game does allow you to earn some premium currency through play, making it possible to work toward a look over time.
Where It Stumbles
SNOW’s biggest issues are stability and consistency. Multiplayer in particular can feel rough, with bugs that undercut what should be the most exciting part of a shared mountain. The technical requirements are also on the higher side for what many players expect from this type of game, and the DirectX11 requirement can be a barrier on older setups. Finally, while ragdoll physics add spectacle, the way crashes play out can look strangely weightless or awkward, which can undercut replays when you nailed the trick but the wipeout animation ruins the moment.
Final Verdict – Good
SNOW is at its strongest when you are simply riding, chasing speed, and experimenting with lines across a genuinely large mountain. The sensation of momentum and the breadth of trick options give it a solid foundation, and the open structure makes it easy to drop in for a few runs or spend an evening practicing a route. Bugs and uneven polish hold it back from being the definitive winter sports sandbox it wants to be, but if you can tolerate rough edges, there is a satisfying freeride game here with plenty of room to improve your skills and style.
SNOW System Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
Operating System: Windows Vista 32 bit
CPU: Core 2 Duo E4600 2.4GHz or Core 2 Duo E4600 2.4GHz
Video Card: GeForce GTS 450 or Radeon HD 6770
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB
Recommended Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit
CPU: Core i3-3240 3.4GHz or Phenom II X4 40
Video Card:GeForce GTX 460 SE or Radeon HD 6870
RAM: 8 GB
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB
SNOW Music & Soundtrack
Coming Soon…
SNOW Additional Information
Developer: Poppermost Productions
Publisher: Poppermost Productions, Sony Computer Entertainment (PS4)
Engine: CryEngine
Other Platforms: OS X, Linux, PS4
Steam Release Date: October 10, 2013
Release Date: March 02, 2014
Development History / Background:
SNOW is developed by Swedish video game developer Poppermost Productions. Established in 2012, the team’s central focus has been SNOW, a project shaped with feedback from professional athletes. The game arrived on Steam as an Early Access release on October 10, 2013, then moved into Closed Beta on March 02, 2014. Multiplayer functionality was introduced later, on November 04, 2015.