The best Xbox games for 2025

Most video games that involve mountains are about the climb: trudging through some momentous challenge and emerging a valorous hero. Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, on the other hand, is all about the drop. This is a downhill skiing game that starts you at the summit and asks you to get to the base in one piece, as quickly as you can. The way down is filled with shortcuts and interweaving routes you can take, but there are no directional markers to guide you. Nor is there any music to pump you up — just the sounds of skis carving into powder, birds chirping, winds whipping, streams flowing, nature being itself. What emerges is a game that pits you against yourself. The mountain, the hard earth, becomes something to be respected rather than conquered. You rush to beat the target time, but you’re fighting gravity and you can only react to the mountain’s twists, gaps and obstacles so fast. So you biff it, again and again, until you manage to scrape through that one safe run. It’s thrillin ... Read full article.