SNØ: Ultimate Freeriding Demo Impressions

The SNØ Demo consists of a relaxing arcade slalom down millions of procedurally generated mountains. But! Don't let the simple premise fool you, the beautiful environments and quick respawn times easily grabbed hold of my attention and kept me playing while chasing higher scores.

While I'm worried for the full game's gameplay breadth, it has already proven itself a fun experience perfect for shorter play sessions on a handheld like the Steam Deck.

Impressions

The following are my impressions after playing the demo. Presented as a rough bulleted list:

Positives

• snow shader is fantastic
• colors and stylized environment is beautiful
• sense of speed is great
• rabbit chasing is an interesting twist on the usual objective
• UI is elegantly minimal
• very quick to respawn
• little touches of polish that I really appreciate
  • snow deformation
  • snow sparkles
  • drone camera

Critiques

• snow SFX are a little too homogenous
• occasional unfair feeling deaths (rare)
• demo did not convince me that there is all that much more in the final game
• I want some more extrinsic structure for the game that scaffolds forcing me to learn/explore the depth of the tricks & traversal system
  • This is more of a personal preference. If the intended design is to be a minimalist replayable arcade experience, then it is already succeeding

Gameplay VOD

Additional Information

Device: Steam Deck LCD 512GB
Steam OS: 3.6.24
Date Played: May 20, 2025
Demo Build ID: 17289598
Proton: 9.0-4

This demo was played in Game Mode on an external display. It was played with a DualShock 4 controller.

Get the Demo