FRESH STYLE

OLLIOLLI WORLD is a radical refresh for the sidescrolling skater

OlliOlli World isn’t like other skaters. It’s not shredding lines down some asphalt concourse, pissing off security guards and scaring passing shoppers as it slams a 50-50 into the kerb. Roll7’s series of sidescrolling skaters has instead travelled to the far-off shores of Radlandia, a skater’s paradise where the rails are always polished and aspiring shredders compete for the chance to become the next Skate Wizard.

OlliOlli World is weirder and wilder than those who Olli’d before it—and it’s all the better for it.

The third game in the series follows the template laid out by OlliOlli 1 and 2. You’re tasked with skating a line down a sidescrolling course, using A to push and the left stick to launch into kickflips and the like. As you go on you build up your bag of tricks, chaining combos with manuals, grinds, and wallrides as you look to not only finish stages, but finish them in style.

OlliOlli World loves skateboarding—not just the tricks and flips, but the culture, the fashion and the music, which in 2022 means more chillhop beats than thrash punk and ska. But it doesn’t feel absolutely beholden to the idea of what skateboarding culture needs to look like. While OlliOlli 1 and 2 sported a recognizable set of sidewalks to shred, World uses those touchstones to create a wonderfully surreal Adventure Time-esque skatopia.

It’s a much-needed tonal refresh for the series, and one that plays perfectly into a new-found third dimension. Skate lines weave around cliffs, abandoned casinos, and massive ice cream cones. Switching from flat backdrops to a world with real depth doesn’t just make World a prettier game—it gives Roll7’s designers much more space to challenge your skate skills.

OlliOlli World’s stages now shift back and forth, looping around on themselves with quarter pipe gaps and destructible floors that open new routes. This new freedom is best explored in tough new Gnarly Routes. Take the right turn and you’ll be pulled down a harder path, demanding more precise jumps and tricks at a faster pace, with the promise of more stylish rewards.

EASY ROLLING

That said, OlliOlli World has taken great care to make its particular style of skating feel more laid-back and approachable than past games—at least for the first few stages.

More punishing elements have been removed in favor of offering higher score bonuses. But levels also feel more laid-back at first, and new elements are doled out so gradually that you’ll still be getting tutorials well into the third or fourth region out of the game’s five total.

Each map has its own leaderboards, and revisiting a stage will assign you a rival to face off against. But that’s a lot of stages to battle over—and while I’m sure there’ll be folks competing for these spots, Gnarvana is where most challenge-seekers will get their fix.

Unlocked after beating the first region, Gnarvana is a mystical space that lets you generate and share tracks by choosing their difficulty, length and biome. Being cobbled together from proc-gen parts they miss the bespoke appeal of the main stages, but it’s also where World’s Daily Challenges exist—spewing out a new track every day to fight over.

World’s pivot to a gentler learning curve may risk putting off series die-hards, but skateboarding games are in the midst of a renaissance. World’s radical reinvention doesn’t just help it keep up with this pack of new skaters—it’s just what the series needed to spawn one of the most stylish, satisfying skaters around.

More laid-back and approachable than past games