OlliOlli World: VOID Riders takes colorful skateboarding out of this world

Roll7 and Private Division hit us with OlliOlli World earlier this year and took us on the most colorful OlliOlli skating adventure yet. It doesn’t end in the quest for Gnarvana, though. Meeting the Skate Godz was just the start. Now it’s time for some skating out of this world in the VOID Riders DLC. We sat down with the new levels, story, and cosmetics in this expansion and came away feeling the vastness of the cosmos… and the sick tricks we busted on our journey throughout it.

Unidentified Flying Skaters

The premise of the OlliOlli World: VOID Skaters DLC is as silly and charming as anything that has come to the game so far. Once you get past Route 666 in the Burntrock area (the third area of the main game), you’ll find a mysterious UFO that can be used to access the DLC content. Essentially, you meet some aliens that have come to OlliOlli World’s Radlandia to find a cool skater to appease their leader, the Nebulord. Overcome all of the challenges laid out before you and you will become the Nebulord’s favorite skater, known as the legendary Hyped One.

VOID Riders introduces skaters to new level mechanics, a large collection of new levels, a new story chapter, and cosmetics to be earned by overcoming it all. It all begins with the tractor beam mechanic. Throughout most of the VOID Riders levels are UFOs that emit a purple energy beneath them. By using a grab trick inside the purple energy, you will be lifted upwards. If you don’t grab in the beam, you’ll just go splat on the ground below. I liked this all-new mechanic mixed into the already fun variety of OlliOlli World controls. It fits nicely and pushes players to use a known mechanic from the base game in a new and interesting way.

The levels of VOID Riders are really fun as well. You can’t just go see the Nebulord right away. First, you’ve got to earn a visit to the VOID via new levels scattered throughout Radlandia. There’s a bog string of levels that ends up with you helping capture a lagoon creature, a mission to catch and impress cows (affectionately referred to as moos) with your cool skating, and more. When you get to VOID, it’s about as colorful as OlliOlli has gotten in its environments. A host of bizarre alien creatures and terrain await you as you skate for a chance to impress the Nebulord himself.

Every one of these new levels comes with new Mike Challenges and scores to beat. Some of them are outright dizzying in their overall design. I sometimes feel like OlliOlli World can be a little unfair in your first approach to a complicated level and VOID Riders is up there in difficulty as far as the layouts go. Sometimes, you’ll have to watch for props to manifest on the route, such as grind rails rising out of the water just as you need them to. Other times, you have to carefully skate towards obstacles as they are removed. I had more than one instance where I was going too fast and careened into a big rock right before a UFO could lift it out of my way. These levels are definitely for OlliOlli World players that know their way around the game.

Even so, conquering them is as much of a blast as anything in OlliOlli World, and you get fun cosmetics for overcoming them, just like any level in the main game. A whole bunch of fun alien-themed clothes, props, accessories, and more are available for players who overcome the challenges and scores. I really dug the new boards and hats, especially the Nebulord hat that makes my skater’s head look like purple cosmic flames. Also, once you complete the main beats of VOID Rider’s levels and appease the Nebulord, you get access to a fresh slate of challenges throughout a lot of the normal levels in OlliOlli World. This provides some fun reasons to go back, replay normal levels, and score yourself even further fun cosmetic rewards for beating them.

The universal language known as skating

OlliOlli World: VOID Riders is a heck of a fun time and won’t set you back too much for the experience at only $10 USD. It doesn’t change up the game so much as add a solid collection of more fun stuff onto it. The tractor beam mechanic is quite amusing and makes the new levels even more complex, the levels themselves are difficult, but incredibly zany in their overall variety, and the narrative that goes along with it is the exact zaniness I expect out of Roll7’s latest chapter of OlliOlli at this point. I also really like the post-DLC challenges adding on to levels of the base game. All-in-all, if you like what the base OlliOlli World had to offer, VOID Riders is a good addition to that already fun package. Skate on, riders. The VOID awaits.

These impressions are based on a PC digital copy of the DLC supplied by the publisher. OlliOlli World and the VOID Riders DLC are out now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.