OlliOlli World’s gameplay is flawless. After beating the base game, it was difficult to imagine what else could be added without making the already intense action a bit too much. With the new Void Riders expansion, Roll7 has made me look a bit silly.
It’s not a massive expansion, only featuring around 15 new levels to try your hand at, but what it adds fits perfectly alongside the skills introduced in the full game.
Void Riders is all about aliens who worship the almighty Nebulord and want to know all about skating and your skater friends.
Tractor Beams Work Seamlessly
To kick it off - once you’ve eventually worked out how to start the expansion - the new mechanic, riding Tractor Beams, is introduced. It’s the only new mechanic in the expansion, but it’s implemented perfectly.
Pushing the right stick up, rather than the left you use for tricks, you float through the air to reach ledges and rails. Travelling through them is incredibly smooth and fits perfectly into OlliOlli World’s rhythm. It’s a simple addition, but a lot of fun.
The tougher levels in the expansion also force you to go back and forth quickly between flicks of the left stick and flicks of the right. It takes a little while to get used to but adds a good dimension to the gameplay. The tractor beams open up the use of verticality and scale, expanding levels and allowing for grind rails to move around.
Void Riders’ alien theme also works really well in tandem with the new mechanics. Aliens play a small part in the main game, but they’re the focus here, adding a mystical aspect to everything.
Alien Takeover
The art behind the levels is stunning once again, too. Alien beings and ships are there to distract you from actually completing a level. More than once I forgot to jump, instead looking off into the distance behind the level.
The alien-led story is still a bit dull, much like the base game’s. I still find the dialogue dump between levels tedious and overly cheesy. The weird skater bro/alien mix is really strange.
However, it doesn’t really matter that the story is tedious when the gameplay is so good.
Void Riders isn’t the longest expansion, but it’s perfectly tuned. The final level may cause you a little bit of trouble since it doesn’t have checkpoints, but for the most part the levels are enough of a challenge.
I didn’t think Roll7 could improve OlliOlli World’s skating, but now I’m just wondering where they’ll take it next.
