OlliOlli World is all about finding the joy in skateboarding

There’s something really aspirational about the feel of wheels beneath you, rolling along concrete (or asphalt, or wood, or whatever else one could skate on). Being able to control a board with wheels, to balance and do tricks, is just inherently cool. There’s a reason skating culture was idolized in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

But the thing about skateboarding, especially for those of us who grew up during those hay days of the sport’s popularity who are adults now, is that there’s almost a guarantee that you’re going to get hurt doing it. Defying gravity is, to put it in the appropriate terms, radical, but it also comes with a high level of risk. Taking on that risk becomes a harder proposition to rationalize as you get older, when wounds heal more slowly and a broken bone could mean a permanent change to your lifestyle.

While the goal of skateboarding video games has always been to alleviate this in some way, to emulate all of, or at least parts of skating to bring a simulation of that coolness and joy to anyone who’s able to play, Roll7’s OlliOlli World has taken the idea of making skateboarding fun and built an entire game around it as a guiding principle.

In this entry, you take on the role of a young skater who has just been chosen to pursue the path of the Skate Wizard, Radlandia’s human connection to the appropriately named deities of skateboarding, the Skate Godz. You’re training to take the place of the current Skate Wizard, Chiffon, and are joined by a motley crew of pals to help you on your road trip across Radlandia to master skating. Dad, who’s just an older dude everyone calls “dad,” runs a skate shop and helps teach you the basics. Suze is the group’s resident filmographer, capturing everyone’s trick with her living video camera, Cammy. And Gnarly Mike provides the comic relief with his antics, and the list of special challenges players can take on in each level. Together, Chiffon and pals guide you through Radlandia to teach you everything you need to master skateboarding and become the next Skate Wizard, all while focusing on the joys of skating.

This new installment in the OlliOlli series rids itself of the risks of skateboarding, instead leaning fully into the rewards of successfully landing the various tricks and maneuvers the game asks you to learn. That’s not to say the game is easy. No, quite the contrary. To quote the more competitive side of gaming, this game has a low floor and a high ceiling. Each area in the world you’re traversing, Radlandia, has different aspects of skateboarding that it wants you to learn and eventually master. Doing this during your in-game road trip, and navigating through the various levels of each biome, is what allows you to meet each of Radlandia’s Skate Godz and take another step towards your goal of becoming the next Skate Wizard. This means that after each area, just when you feel as though you’ve gotten comfortable and are starting to have the hang of things, a new mechanic will present a challenge.

This keeps the actual gameplay interesting as you progress through OlliOlli World’s main story campaign. But beyond that, it creates an almost Metroid-vania-like element of gathering tools to return to and unlock secret or alternate paths in previous areas. Not only can you use what you learn later on to score higher and complete challenges in previous levels, you can potentially access more of the game’s secrets and side quests.

OlliOlli World’s well, world, also lends itself to this sense of fun. Each biome has its own special vibe to match the theme of skating it’s trying to teach you about. You’ll learn the basics of tricks and grinding at the beach, gaining guidance from the ice cream clad Meltas, before heading to the forests of Cloverbrook to learn wallriding alongside giant, advertisement-bearing bees. Everything about these areas feels as though they were designed to elicit a sense of “wouldn’t it be cool to skateboard here?” And it is! Enjoying these pastel palette environments and using the game’s mechanics and your own skill to unlock additional areas within them adds an element of whimsical joy to this installment that the previous OlliOlli games never managed to capture.

Though you can (and if you’re like me, will) crash and absolutely eat it in this game, it doesn’t really matter. Sure, if you’re looking to do a perfect run of a course, dying isn’t an option. But OlliOlli World has a checkpoint system that allows you to restart sections of the level, rather than having to completely start over from the top. You can take as many tries as you need to practice a given combo or rough section. You may be trying to become the next bridge between humanity and Gnarvana, but there’s no rush.

Because OlliOlli World allows players to learn and advance at their own pace, it emphasizes all of the fun, with less of the frustration of its predecessors. While this installment is still focused on pushing players to achieve a flow state of precise gameplay, it does so more gently and with more varied options for players to approach levels and improve their virtual skating. New players can check out tutorials of every technique and trick each area specializes in, but those with more experience (or who just want to figure it out on their own) can skip those and just focus on the level at hand. Various side quests that are littered throughout each map provide additional opportunities to practice and unlock more of Radlandia, but they’re not required to learn or advance.

Another key part of this game that’s totally optional is the fashion/customization. While you don’t need to be able to change your clothes or the way your board looks, OlliOlli World not only included these elements, but provided a ton of options because it’s fun. Choosing the perfect board, trucks and wheels to match your outfit is satisfying. Anyone who enjoys customization will enjoy it, and it enhances the biomes as well. There’s nothing like getting to match the environment you’re in with the exact style and vibe you want. What’s more, none of the clothing options are gender-locked (or even related) and players can adjust their body shape and size to some degree as well.

It’s a bit hard to talk about OlliOlli World as an experience, because at its core, it’s another skating game. While the levels are varied and the gameplay is interesting, it’s a skateboarding game that tackles things level by level, and while there is a narrative, it’s fairly basic and can even be mechanically skipped. But that simplicity and commitment to creating an experience that is entirely focused on the joy of skating is what makes OlliOlli World special. Though I’ve enjoyed skateboarding games in some capacity since the Tony Hawk days, none have made me feel the way OlliOlli World has, which is just chill. Do I get stressed on tricky (sorry) parts of courses? Sure. But learning how to handle these sections is fun, and there aren’t really any consequences for messing up. The game goes at your pace, inviting you to enjoy this incredible, scary sport however you want to, so long as you’re having fun.