Lonely Mountains: Downhill
Just you and your bike – take it on a thrilling ride down an unspoiled mountain landscape. Make your way through thick forests, narrow trails and wild rivers. Race, jump, slide and try not to crash – all the way from the peak to the valley! Explore the rich mountain worlds at your own pace or face the ticking clock. Each mountain features several trails – ride along quiet mountain lakes, majestic forests and steep canyons. A custom physics system lets you carefully drop from boulder to boulder, sprint over abysses or slide through muddy grounds. It’s all up to you! Take the relaxing scenic route or go off-road to find the fastest way to the finish line! Master the tight and responsive controls to make your way to hidden resting places and secret shortcuts. No audience, no barrier tapes – experience a beautiful nature unspoiled by men. Unlock new difficulty modes and prove your speed-running talents on the leaderboards! Train your skills day and night to ultimately compete with the best riders in the world in the risky Free Ride mode! Each bike handles differently, so find the perfect one for your playstyle and make your way down the mountain to unlock dozens of paint jobs and outfits!
Game Discussion
Steam User 48
With over a thousand hours of experience, I could also throw my hat into the ring and share the essentials about this fantastic game:
For the casual player:
Lonely Mountains: Downhill offers plenty of entertainment and challenges for those seeking a relaxed pastime, challenging themselves. While the game's challenges can sometimes be a bit repetitive, they offer interesting trials for the new player for a good amount of time, perhaps about 20-50 hours of gameplay. The different bikes are quite easy to unlock, and their handling actually varies quite a bit. You'll find intriguing moments as you get acquainted with them, noticing that one bike doesn't suit every terrain as well. Additionally, the daily changing Daily Rides are a great extra touch, allowing you to compare your level with other players daily (on average, about a couple of hundred players participate daily). You can get nice cosmetic customizations quite effortlessly for free from them.
For the competitive player:
The game offers very diverse leaderboards, where you can compete in several different competition formats. Each trail is divided into 5-8 sections, each with its own rankings available. You can aim for world records on individual sections or the overall time for trails. However, the leaderboards are highly competitive, so setting records will not be easy. Practically, this means that speedrunning this game requires grinding, which explains my thousand hours of gameplay. During this time, I've achieved about 6-7 world records, of which only one remains valid now. So, the game indeed offers plenty of challenges.
Drawing from my personal experience, I highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in games of this genre.
Steam User 29
It's a lovely little indie gem with tight controls, simple, but difficult to master gameplay, a low poly but pleasing anesthetic and quite relaxing and peaceful despite challenging.
I stayed away originally from this title since i kept hearing it described as "dark souls bike". I really hate everything getting compared to Dark Souls. It wasn't the first challenging game to ever be released.
This isn't anything like a souls challenge. The challenge is as difficult as you want to make it. The courses get tough but the most challenging aspect is the time challenges and if you are going for the insane shortcuts (which I can't help myself and do haha).
There are many challenges not related to time. My favorite being simply getting to the end without checkpoints. No time to beat (unless you want to beat your personal best), just stay on your bike.
Don't pass this one up because of people and their reckless use of the souls-like label. There are 3 free courses, a paid dlc one, and daily challenges. The developer seems quite engaged still and supporting an Indie Dev is what the gamers need to keep doing.
Steam User 10
Fun, chill game you can pick up and put down easily. Surprising amount of upgrades and cosmetics that keep you playing. Relaxing and/or challenging, depending on how you want to play. Great game!
Steam User 7
The landing physics are kind of janky, but the game is fun, especially if you like run perfecting games. I wish it had the ability to replay runs/add a ghost.
Steam User 5
Super fun and great on the Deck. It's such an easy yet somehow difficult game to play. I love this!
Steam User 6
This is a really fun game and I am sad for myself that I did not pick it up sooner.
You are basically going from start to finish line on various trails while finding shortcuts to improve your time. Sometimes the shortcuts are obvious, sometimes not so much. It's very fun trying to shave off more and more time from runs.
There are a handful of different bikes you can unlock, presumably with different handling. I am just about to unlock my first bike and have been playing so far with the starter bike. It controls very slidey but the steering can be very sharp, so that you can kind of "kick out" on turns. It's very very satisfying and has an arcade type feel. You also have a brake and an accelerate, which is on a stamina meter so you can't just use it non-stop. The runs are fairly short, just a few minutes at most, and restarting after a crash is VERY quick so it's not frustrating. For instance, when trying to work out a shortcut, sometimes you'll just crash repeatedly until you find the right line, so it's important that restarting is dang near instantaneous.
The low-poly graphics work very well here too. You get enough information about the environment to navigate but not so much that it is distracting or obstructing your view. And speaking of the environments: so far they all just make me feel like I am truly out in the middle of nature by myself and my bike. There isn't any BGM, just ambient nature sounds. It's perfect.
I've played it mostly on Steam Deck, and occasionally on desktop. Works flawlessly on both, I haven't had a single issue.
Overall, Lonely Mountains is a very chill and meditative game. If you like arcade drifting/racing games, if you like mountain biking, if you like nature, and if you like ALL of those things you'll probably really enjoy this. Good price point and seems to go on sale fairly often.
8/10
Steam User 4
Played this on Gamepass for around 20 hours. It's just a great game. Simplistic graphics, awesome gameplay and control, beautiful ambient sound I'd wish other games had and lots of content and challenge.
A neat and perfect package that's definitely worth its money.