Roller Champions

Roller Champions has an impressive, unique core but squanders it with a gameplay loop that gets stale.

Roller Champions has potential; the core gimmick and gameplay are both lots of fun and it's satisfying blasting your enemy across the court with a dropkick as they're about to score three points against you. However, it lacks in pretty much every other department and there's just not enough content in here to satisfy anyone. Add in the performance and blurry visual issues on Switch, and we can't really recommend the game on Nintendo's console in its current state. It is free-to-play, so it's worth a try if anything we've mentioned sounds interesting, but unless some serious updates are made to this version, you're definitely best off playing it on a different platform if at all possible.

Unfortunately, it's tough to center a game's progression around cosmetics when the skater that's being customized looks so bland. Add to that a limited availability of game modes at launch and Roller Champions gets off to a rough start at the track. Fortunately, the core experience is enjoyable enough that it could feasibly pick up some momentum and score some goals down the road.

As already mentioned, live service games live or die depending on how they are supported, so it is difficult to say if investing time in Roller Champions will be worth it in the long run. The game is solid and feels good to play. The plans for the game's first year sound interesting, with each Season introducing new content revolving around a theme and new quality of life features. Hence, the ball is literally on Ubisoft Montreal's court now. Will they be able to complete their three laps of the arena and score five points? We will just have to wait and see.

I went into Roller Champions with minimal expectations. Ubisoft appears to be desperate to imbed themselves with a successful live service game alongside EA, Epic Games and Activision. They have already tried and failed miserably with Hyperscape. Recently Ubi has also shown some concepts for future free to play projects that suffered hugely negative feedback from the gaming community. With those factors in mind, I do believe that this game has some strong legs if it can filter through fresh ideas, playlists and interesting, affordable cosmetics.

As it stands, Roller Champions doesn't offer much. It certainly has a good foundation with its resolutely arcade gameplay, ultra accessible, simple game rules, but that's it. Content level, we have nothing to put under the tooth.

Roller Champions does not have the stuff of champions and, net of a gameplay that works and entertains, fails to live up to expectations due to serious shortcomings in terms of content and on the technical / artistic side, due to which the game fails to live up to other successful free to play.

There's something satisfying about its derby-style structure and the nuanced tactics that entails. Its rollerblading mechanics are very approachable, yet there's also a deceptive skill ceiling too. But, like skating through a small sand mound, the momentum is lost by the repetition and under-polished features.

Roller Champions has potential, but it actually looks like a very Early Access than a finished game. It almost has no content and its economic system is far from the healthiest on the market. Those who don't want to pay, will have to grind for long hours just top hope to get hair or a less generic character.

Roller Champions has a high-powered core, it's fun and it has a very attractive new idea.