Descenders Reviews

Descenders is ranked in the 60th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
8 / 10
Nov 6, 2020

Descenders is an addictive freeriding roguelite with plenty of content to keep players busy as they get to grips with its unique take on extreme biking action. It may be a little rough around the edges in places and this Switch port has certainly seen a graphical downgrade, but the core riding controls well, the framerate is solid and the procedurally-generated nature of courses keeps things feeling fresh. With a meaty campaign featuring eight diverse biomes, a decent multiplayer component and those all-important online leaderboards, this one's a surprisingly robust package that comes highly recommended.

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7.5 / 10.0
Aug 23, 2020

Descenders is a little rough around the edges, and it can be punishing, but there's a lot to get stuck into, with a satisfying gameplay flow and a brilliant soundtrack.

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7.5 / 10.0
Nov 6, 2020

While Descenders offers a fun downhill mountain-biking romp, it's constantly held back by the Switch's lackluster hardware.

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8 / 10.0
Aug 21, 2020

Descenders is an essential experience of arcade racing, inspired by the great 90s classics, which relies on a crazy sense of speed and adrenalinic gameplay. It may be a little bit rough in terms of visuals, but it's hectic and fun.

Review in Italian | Read full review

8.5 / 10.0
May 11, 2019

Descenders is a fun and challenging mix between arcade and roguelike genders with freeride as the perfect excuse. High speed, risky tricks and an infinite amount of procedural tracks are the pillars of one of the best surprises of 2019 so far.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Aug 25, 2020

After each descent you want more. More speed, more show, more fun, Descenders is the classic easy to play hard to master game, embellished with rogue-like elements that exponentially increase its longevity.

Review in Italian | Read full review

7 / 10
Aug 23, 2020

Descenders is a solid experience if you're looking for a time waster that you'll return to over and over. While constant screen tearing issues hamper its presentation quite a bit, the game has solid controls, as well as simple though endlessly entertaining mechanics. While the controls aren't the tightest we've seen, they do everything adequately and contribute to the fun. Add in the wide range of biomes to race through, including some more wacky ones towards the end of the game, and it makes for one fun package. And that's to say nothing of the fun little gimmicks, like the first-person mode and the trials-style courses. Descenders has everything you could possibly want in a downhill cycling roguelite.

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7.5 / 10.0
Aug 21, 2020

Descenders offers up some excellent arcade biking thrills in short bursts, with the multiplayer prolonging the fun. The simplistic nature of the gameplay will grate eventually, but it's worth investigating for those who want a two-wheeled adrenaline rush without too many frills.

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Dec 23, 2020

Despite the problems Descenders has it’s an extreme sports game that, at it’s best, does a great job at getting your heart racing. It’s fun to play, easy to pick up and difficult to master. It turns downhill biking into something accessible for far more people. At its worst, it’s just a bit bland, but it’s never completely flavourless.

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8.5 / 10.0
Nov 23, 2020

Descenders ended up being a really fun, challenging game. Even if you're not great at sports games, or you have young children that might not understand the goal, this is one that the whole family can enjoy

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7 / 10
Aug 22, 2020

Descenders reiterated one of my motto’s in life – don’t knock it till you try it. I have no inclination in real life to be the next Evel Knievel or do any mountain biking, but I really enjoyed pressing the right buttons to make my little biker gal do tricks and swerve around the tracks like she was born to ride.

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8 / 10.0
May 20, 2019

Descenders is an arcade extreme downhill freeriding, a real tribute to the '90s.

Review in Italian | Read full review

Unscored
Jul 8, 2022

Descenders is an absolute delight that I can highly recommend to anyone in the mood for a good, silly, arcade-style racer with a significant but optional extreme sports stunt element. It’s a game with potentially limitless replayability, yet one which doesn’t make unreasonable demands of your time; it’s the perfect thing to have on the back-burner when you’re in the mood to just play something which excites and thrills, but which doesn’t demand commitment or too much brainpower.

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6.5 / 10.0
Nov 6, 2020

Descenders joins the reawakening of the skateboarding and cycling genres by offering a unique take on a specific form of cycling we haven't seen in a long time. While the gameplay is thrilling and does its best to stay interesting, mechanics that are at odds with each other mean you will be forced to choose between having that exciting arcade experience or maintaining the roguelite run through the sometimes intense difficulty. Whether taken seriously or just for fun, Descenders isn't consistent, and considering this specific port has some rough edges graphically, you may just want to focus on using it for its multiplayer.

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6 / 10
Sep 24, 2020

Descenders can be entertaining for a few hours and although some of its mechanics such as controls and physics are sub-par compared to other games in the genre, it still offers enough cool gameplay moments to be considered an okay indie game.

Review in Persian | Read full review

Gamefa
Top Critic
7.5 / 10.0
Aug 27, 2020

Overall Descenders is an engaging game that can bring you fun times. The uniqueness of each course makes the game even more exciting and the multiplayer is so much fun. Although the the punishment system is questionable and the game doesn't look very good visually, Descenders is a decent game that totally worth your 25$.

Review in Persian | Read full review

Sep 9, 2020

Descenders is one of those rare games that procedural generation makes it less fun. I wish it was a fine-tuned experience instead.

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7 / 10.0
Nov 6, 2020

On a general level I'm a huge fan of procedurally-generated content...

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7.8 / 10.0
Sep 12, 2020

Descenders is a fast, exciting, and ever-changing adrenaline-pumping addictive game which I find hard to put down. The game on the PS4 suffers from some slowdown, jerky moments and unresponsive controls, especially in levels with a lot of assets, but I still found the overall experience fun to play. There’s a bunch of difficult and long-winded trophies which will keep you busy within the procedurally generated main game, plus the multiplayer, Freeride, Daily Challenge, and bonus custom Bike Parks – you’ll never run out of things to do within the game. I play this game daily and every session feels new and exciting.

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8 / 10.0
Aug 21, 2020

The downhill mountain biking simulation seems to have found, with Descenders, a truly faithful and quite convincing video game production. We enjoy discovering all the regions offered and accomplishing the bonus objectives, while progressing in the career of our rider. The Die & Retry side specific to the software is frankly interesting and we liked this feeling of learning all along. It will suit much more by its gameplay than by its graphics and its musical track, but that was more than enough for us to enjoy it.

Review in French | Read full review