Eagerly awaited by fans of skateboarding games, OlliOlli World is the latest trick-stuffed title to come to us from Roll7, the developers behind 2014’s OlliOlli and 2015’s OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood. This time they’ve really outdone themselves.
The first thing that returning fans will notice is a significant change to the art style. While the previous two games in this franchise were 2D side-scrollers with very old-school graphics, OlliOlli World has character models that look like Adventure Time characters or Rick & Morty cast-offs, as well as ‘2.5D’ levels that are positively oozing with detail and charm.
In this case, 2.5D refers to the fact that, although players are still almost always moving from one side of the screen to the other, there are multiple different paths you can take through levels, and the depth of field has been enhanced greatly. For example, at certain points, you’ll be able to hop between two different routes, one of which is normally a ‘gnarly’ option that’s a little bit more difficult.
As part of a digital demo event prior to the game’s launch next month, RadioTimes.com went hands-on with an early PC build of OlliOlli World, and now we’re allowed to tell you what we think. Read on for our full thoughts, then!
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First things first, let’s take a second to stress that OlliOlli World is utterly charming. When those character models were first revealed, it was easy to fear that they would spouting overly edgy dialogue and generally outstaying their welcome. But we were very pleasantly surprised to find that they’re all pretty likeable people, and you can skip right past most of their dialogue if you just want to get skating. There’s also an impressively deep character creator, so you can make your own avatar as wacky or as normal as you like.
Another thing that impresses straight off the bat is the level design and the overall world building at play during each chunk of the game. There’s a surprisingly deep overarching lore regarding the ‘skate gods’ that created this world, with plenty of cute stories spinning off from that central idea (you can skip all of that, too, if you like). And each individual level has its own memorable moments, with an impressive amount of unique pastel colour designs and plenty of interactive elements at every turn.
Playing OlliOlli World often feels like a zen experience. Lo-fi beats tick along on the game’s super-chill soundtrack as each course unfurls in front of you. The gameplay is easy to pick up, so you’ll be grinding down railings and performing sick combos in no time. It may take you a while to master the art of getting truly high scores, but even just sticking to the basics can feel very satisfying at the same time as creating a chilled out atmosphere.
You might get stuck from time to time, but there are regular checkpoints to ensure that you’ll never lose too much progress. And the gameplay feels slick, smooth and welcoming, so you won’t resent those restarts when they do occur. And when you really get in the zone, nailing a chain of combos and overcoming multiple hurdles without breaking a sweat, you’ll feel like a skate god yourself.
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During our time with the demo, we mainly played OlliOlli World as a solo experience, but it’s worth noting that there are multiplayer elements as well – all of them are asynchronous, which means you’ll be competing with other players indirectly and at different times, in a retro arcade’s ‘try to beat my high score’ kind of way.
We did try this out a bit, but quickly found ourselves unable to overcome some of the highly impressive numbers on the leaderboard from other people in the demo. There will presumably be a bit more of a range when the game launches to the public, with more players of varying abilities putting scores on the board.
Due to our limited time with the demo, it’s also worth stressing that we only managed to get through the first two areas (out of five) in the game’s cutesy overworld map – each area has its own look and its own quirks, and we’re very much looking forward to trying out the others later on.
Even with those disclaimers out of the way, though, we’re happy to say that OlliOlli World is a game that we think a lot of players will love. There’s a real smoothness to the gameplay, and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as flying through a course without falling off your board, letting the surreal visuals and soothing music wash over you as you go.
You may even find yourself pleasantly intrigued by the story and all the wacky characters and creatures in this world. This is certainly a unique skateboarding game, dripping with mythos and even some mystical elements, but it gels well together in our opinion. It’s a really nice overall package.
Here’s hoping that OlliOlli World finds an audience at launch, then. We’re very much looking forward to trying out more of it and seeing what the second half of the game has in store. Based on what we’ve seen so far, we’d certainly say that OlliOlli World sticks the landing and never feels like a grind. We’d recommend hopping in.
OlliOlli World launches 8th February 2022 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Nintendo Switch. We previewed on PC using an NVIDIA 3070 Ti graphics card.
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