“We felt it could bring something really fresh to the gaming environment, something fresh that actually responds to a huge trend you see on YouTube: action sports.” Steep is set on one mountain in the Alps at the intersection of Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France, and every player using the game will be based on this mountain. Creative director Igor Manceau explained at Ubisoft’s E3 corporate press event that the idea was an “open world action sports game designed with sharing in mind.” “We could offer something fresh, something new, where navigating the world was at the core of the experience,” he said. Originally starting as a demo for Wildlands, Ubisoft’s Annecy studio has been working on Steep for two and a half years. The production on Steep came out of the open world development for Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

Being touted as the “first open world game that links open world and sports,” Ubisoft is excited for Steep both for its multiplayer potential and the way it takes advantage of the franchise’s new tech. Ubisoft’s movement toward open world games continues with Steep, a new extreme sports game for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC that was announced at E3 2016.

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