While a bunch of game studios seem to be eyeing a release on the Epic Games Store, Crytek seems content to keep their games on Steam… for now. The company’s latest published title to graduate from Early Access is called SNOW from Swedish developer Poppermost Productions. The game is currently available as a free-to-play title with limited functionality, or you can pick up the Ultimate Edition for $19.99. During the first week of release the Ultimate Edition will be marked down by 35% off the normal purchasing price up until February 21st, so you can get it for just $12.99 instead of $19.99.
So what’s the difference between the free-to-play version and the Ultimate Edition? Well, according to the Steam store page, the Ultimate Editioncomes with lifetime access to all of the game’s DLC, which includes the following events and stages:
- Sialia
- Whiteridge
- X Games Aspen 2016
- X Games Aspen 2017
- X Games Norway 2017
- X Games Aspen 2018
- B&e 2015
- B&e 2016
- Jon Olsson Invitational
- Suzuki 9 Knights
- S Games
- Fochi 2014
If you don’t need the extra DLC, you can stick with the base game, which is themed around extreme sports events taking place around snowy mountaintops. In the free version you’ll have access to a total of 36 different events, 13 challenges, 39 collectables, 19 locations and 39 rewards.
You can check out the gameplay for SNOW below to get an idea of what it’s like.
The CryEngine-powered sports title is like Crytek’s attempt to rival Ubisfot’s Steep. I’m not sure what’s up with the one-word game titles, but I imagine it was some marketer’s idea to make it “cool” and “concise” to lure in the casual gamers, even though it makes it impossible to find gameplay videos on YouTube. Little do they know that such marketing tricks are oftentimes telltale signs for core gamers to steer well and clear away from the game.
In fact, if you take a trip down to the user review section for SNOW you’ll see that the game currently has an ever-growing stockpile of mixed reviews. The major complaint is that you don’t get anything but a single mountain experience in the free version, and that there still a lot of bugs and glitches when it comes to the challenges and the sightseeing mode, as well as difficulty in navigating the user interface.
It sounds like it’s still a work in progress even though it graduated from Early Access. Some of these problems likely popped up after they ported the game to CryEngine version 5.5.2 with the help of WastedStudios, so there’s likely some kinks they have to work out before it gets back to running smoothly again.
In the meantime, you can check out the free-to-play version of SNOW over on the Steam store page. However, if you’re looking for a solid, glitch-free experience, it might be best to wait for an update or two for Poppermost to address some of the issues brought up in the reviews.
