With SNOW heading to PS4, GamingBolt spoke to the development team at Poppermost Productions to learn more about the title and its future direction.

"SNOW is the ultimate sandbox experience: We place you on a massive open-world mountain and you decide where you’d like to go and what you want to do."

Usually when we see free to play titles, they’re MMOs or ARPGs. What motivated a free to play snowboarding  (update: SNOW is currently a free-ski title but snowboarding and snowmobiles will be offered in the future) title?

We saw an opportunity in the market, as winter sports and action sports in general are underrepresented. Since we are all big winter sports fans, we wanted to create that ultimate experience we were missing in video games.

For us, free-to-play, is the business model that suits the best with our vision. We want to offer a sandbox, à-la-carte type, experience with constant content updates and free-to-play offers that flexibility and the live service options we were looking for.

When deciding whether the game should go into Early Access, what were the pros and cons of this decision?

We always saw Early Access as a great way to show our game to players and get feedback from the community to make improvements alongside the entire development.

I think the only con is that you offer an unfinished product and it can backfire sometimes if your audience doesn’t understand where you are in the development. That’s why we always try to communicate as much as possible about our development plans and thinking.

Can you tell us about the activities that SNOW offers along with its different modes?

SNOW is the ultimate sandbox experience: We place you on a massive open-world mountain and you decide where you’d like to go and what you want to do. We haven’t created any single player story mode for example because we didn’t want to force our users to follow pre-defined roads. Instead we offer a selection of modes and features that you can complete if you want to:

• Free Roam: Riding on the mountain with no time or trick pressure, this is the best way to explore the mountain
• Events: Structured time or point-based competitions with leaderboards
• Challenges: Small tasks to complete on the mountain to extend the exploration of the mountain
• Multiplayer: Free roam multiplayer experience. In the near future we will also offer competitive multiplayer

This liberty of choices continues also with your character customization. You can choose between several hundred clothes and equipment items from more than twenty different winter sports brands and customize your rider the way you want. If we look further down the line, we want to go even further and offer players the option to place jumps and props dynamically on the mountain.

How did you go about realistically depicting the weather and physics for SNOW?

Currently it’s always nice weather in our mountains but eventually we’d love to offer snowy or foggy days too. At the moment we are using a feature available in CRYENGINE, the game engine we use, that lets you dynamically change the time of day.

Physics is a whole different story. We have almost custom create an entire physics system just for SNOW. We want everything to be as dynamic as possible and we push the physics system to its limit. But now it’s starting to feel really nice when you play the game.

"At the top of Sialia, you have a lot of cliffs and rocks. The middle sections are more covered in alpine forests and at the bottom you find more men-made areas, like villages or snow parks."

There’s quite a bit of variety in how players can explore routes in SNOW. Can you explain your courses and the different routes they offer?

SNOW is an open world mountain, so you can basically take any route around you. But we structured this massive mountain and created separate areas with unique looks and landmarks to keep the gameplay interesting and break any potential visual monotony from looking at too much white and snowy texture.

At the top of Sialia, you have a lot of cliffs and rocks. The middle sections are more covered in alpine forests and at the bottom you find more men-made areas, like villages or snow parks.

What new features can players expect in the immediate future?

The number one request from the community is snowboarding. So this is what we’ll be focusing on.

Are there any updates on when the PS4 version of SNOW is coming in?

We still haven’t announced a release date but we hope to be able to launch a Closed Beta in the next few months.

What are your resolution and frame rate targets for the PS4 version?

We are aiming for 1080p and 60FPS but we can’t confirm at the moment that this will be the case in the final build.

SNOW looks beautiful on the PC. What kind of graphical options can players expect in the final version?

The current Beta version is already offering a whole set of graphical options like V-sync, texture, particle, or shadow quality. You can also change volumetric effects, motion blur, and depth of field.

"We currently have an exclusivity deal with Sony and will investigate a potential release on X1 once this exclusive period is over. The reason why we haven’t looked into an X1 release is because of bandwidth reasons."

Are there any plans to release a DX12 version of the game in the future?

We want to work on SNOW for at least a few years, so of course we will offer a DX12 version as soon as it’s possible.

We recently played the open beta and were quite pleased with how it’s shaping up. But what the biggest feedback you received during the open beta and what kind of fixes and tweaks are you working on currently?

The two most recurring requests are a more robust multiplayer experience with additional modes and features and of course snowboards. That’s why we are currently working on multiplayer improvements and at the same time try to implement snowboards, because our players what them really bad!

Are there any plans to release an X1 version in the future or for that matter why isn’t an X1 version considered for now?

We currently have an exclusivity deal with Sony and will investigate a potential release on X1 once this exclusive period is over. The reason why we haven’t looked into an X1 release is because of bandwidth reasons. We are only ten people working on SNOW and need to focus on fewer platforms as we still developing new features and adding content.

As SNOW is free to play, what’s next?  Aside from new features, what kind of post-launch content can we anticipate?

We have partnered up with more than 30 partners from the winter sports industry. This is a very dynamic industry with new products launching every year. We will continue to work with these brands and make sure we can offer their latest products each year in SNOW too.

Is there anything else you want to tell our readers about the game?

SNOW is a great and atypical gaming experience. It’s super relaxing to play but also offers some really cool gaming moments. And it’s free so there’s no excuse to not download it.

Poppermost’s SNOW is shaping up to be fantastic free ski video game if the recent open beta is anything to go by. The game is currently available to play in an Early Access format on Steam but other than that the developers are also working on a PlayStation 4 version. GamingBolt recently spoke to to Poppermost Games and asked them whether there are any plans to release an Xbox One version in the future or for that matter why isn’t an Xbox One version considered for now.

“We currently have an exclusivity deal with Sony and will investigate a potential release on X1 once this exclusive period is over,” an executive from  Poppermost Games said to GamingBolt. So it seems that the game may release on the Xbox One but as of right now there is nothing planned.

The developer also revealed that they don’t have the resources to work on an Xbox One version. “The reason why we haven’t looked into an X1 releasesis because of bandwidth reasons. We are only ten people working on SNOW and need to focus on fewer platforms as we still developing new features and adding content.”

SNOW is due sometime later this year for the PS4 and PC. Stay tuned for more news and updates.

The game is pitched as an open world skiing game, but in reality it is a series of mountains, each open to explore and traverse. When you start the game you are immediately given a choice between single and multiplayer modes. The only real difference is that multiplayer will populate the mountains with other skiers, making the world feel more alive. I fooled around with the multiplayer but the servers still have a couple of problems so I spent the majority of my time in single player. After playing through a brief tutorial I was presented with a couple of different routes to take. I could choose a mountain to explore and just ski to my hearts content, or try my hand at events.

Let’s get this out of the way first: SNOW looks fantastic. The snow glistens in the light and small details like the ice and dirt flying up behind your skis bring the whole experience together. The time of day can also be changed with the press of a button, which let to some beautiful moments as I saw the different ways the light played off the environments. Each park and mountain looks great and is full of little details like mountainside chalets, broken logs and jagged rock formations.

"Let’s get this out of the way first: SNOW looks fantastic. The snow glistens in the light and small details like the ice and dirt flying up behind your skis bring the whole experience together."

One thing that really stood out to me was the crowd. From a distance they looked like pieces of clipart, but upon closer inspection they were actually blow up dolls with their arms in the air. It adds a bit of humor and levity to an otherwise authentic and serious sports title. The animation is also smooth for the most part. There are some moments that are a little jarring, but cutting through the snow, speeding of the edge of jumps and half pipes, and flipping through the air all look stylish and further add to the over feel of the experience. The music is also great. It stays in the background, never taking away from the gameplay; it adds to the game’s serenity and perfectly matches the title’s tone.

I never found myself fumbling with the controls, whether I was using a controller or mouse and keyboard. Tricks are easy to pull off and turning is responsive and smooth. The game seems to function better when using a gamepad, but using a keyboard didn’t take anything away. The only notable downside with a controller is that you have no control over the camera. The view locked behind your skier and can be switched to first person if you want. If you want to change the camera to get a better look at something or check out your character, you’ll still need to reach for the mouse.

Free play has a large variety of real world mountains and parks, each with its own distinct feel and obstacles. Some mountains are not fully unlocked, but flipping off of jumps and spiraling off a half pipe was still great fun. One of the game’s mountains is much more fleshed out and gave me a real sense of what the end product will be like. I started at the mountain’s peak beside the wreckage of a crashed airplane and took of down the slopes. There were diverging paths, jagged cliffs to avoids and jump off, and rails to grind. Some of the areas were a little barren, but it was still fun to race down the mountain, hitting every jump I could and narrowly missing trees.

"Events are more limited but they have a more concentrated focus. There are six different types of events to participate in: Timetrial, Descent, Slopestyle. Big Air, Freeride and Freestyle."

Events are more limited but they have a more concentrated focus. There are six different types of events to participate in: Timetrial, Descent, Slopestyle. Big Air, Freeride and Freestyle. They all have similar goals, like making it to the bottom of a mountain as fast as possible without crashing, or racking up as big of a score as possible by pulling off insane tricks. They may be a little simple, but it’s still exhilarating to flip and spin down hills to climb up the leaderboards. Carving up the snow, choosing your own path and endlessly skiing remains fun for hours, but the events have some focus that the rest of the game lacks.

There are also challenges for each mountain. These are completely optional and are there for you to tackle as you explore the snowy world, but they do breakup the sometimes-monotonous activity of slowly gliding down the hills.

There are still some bugs – as is to be expected – and some of the locations are still a little rough, but I can already see how well SNOW is shaping up. There are still a few wrinkles to iron out – as there are in every early access game – but SNOW is sure to live up to the goals it has set for itself.

This game was previewed on the PC.

The cool looking snowboarding game, unimaginatively titled SNOW, has been in development by Swedish developer Poppermost for quite a while now- it’s been in Steam Early Access for almost two years now, and it will finally be getting a full release soon. Speaking to WCCFTech, Poppermost CEO Alexander Bergendahl discussed the game, including the possibility of it eventually showing up on Xbox One, as well as potential VR support.

“We receive emails every day from people who want to play SNOW but only have an Xbox One, so I’m sure we’ll see the game make its way over there eventually,” he said. “We’re a small team and with our limited resources have to focus on a single platform at a time. We want to bring SNOW to as many platforms as possible but have to make sure we don’t kill ourselves doing it.

“We’ve been working a lot with various VR devices and have some initial implementation already live in the Closed Beta,” he added.

He also added that the team is looking at some form of cross play between PS4 and PC players, which would be absolutely awesome.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more information on the game.