Scooters finally join the Republic as Season 20 celebrates five years and 17 million players

Five years after opening its enormous extreme-sports playground, Riders Republic is still finding new ways to move through it. Season 20 is now live, introducing the long-awaited Scooter as the final major toy of the Ridge Full Send year, new collaborations with Ethic, Envy, Spyder and Element, a competitive user-generated challenge, 11 adapted events and a season-long celebration of Ubisoft Annecy’s fifth anniversary.

The timing gives the update considerably more weight than a normal seasonal refresh. Ubisoft has confirmed that Riders Republic has now reached 17 million lifetime players, while the game itself turns five later this month. Season 20 consequently doubles as the finale of Year 5 and the beginning of an anniversary programme that will include exclusive rewards based on other Ubisoft franchises, an in-game concert, a dedicated livestream, Twitch Drops and a four-day free weekend before the season closes with one last Full Send event on the X Games ramp.

The Scooter finally completes the Ridge Full Send year

Season 20’s headline addition has been planned for almost a year. When Ubisoft introduced the Ridge Full Send Pack at the beginning of Year 5, it laid out a four-season roadmap built around one new toy or specialist piece of gear per update. Season 17 opened with the Whiplash Freestyle Snowmobile skin, Season 18 introduced the Pockett Dirt Bike, Season 19 followed with the Pockett Stunt vehicle, and Season 20 was always intended to finish the sequence with the Scooter.

That makes its October 7 arrival more than an isolated equipment drop. The Scooter is effectively the final piece of an annual content package designed around unusual ways of interacting with Riders Republic’s existing world. It can be purchased separately through the in-game store or obtained through the Ridge Full Send Pack, and Ubisoft has built dedicated content around it rather than treating it merely as another cosmetic variation of BMX or Skate.

The similarities with those disciplines are nevertheless useful. Scooters are naturally suited to rails, ledges, bowls and technical park riding, allowing Ubisoft to reuse areas already developed for the Skate and BMX careers while giving players a different physical relationship with those obstacles. The handlebars and deck create a trick vocabulary that sits somewhere between both sports, with the rider manipulating the Scooter independently in the air while still retaining the steering and rotational control associated with a two-wheeled vehicle.

Professional riders helped Ubisoft build the new trick system

Ubisoft worked with professional Scooter riders Timon Pharabod and Jonathan Perroni during development, using their experience to make the new toy feel recognisable to people familiar with the discipline rather than simply placing a smaller bicycle beneath an existing animation set. The studio previously released a behind-the-scenes feature showing how the athletes contributed to the process, with particular attention paid to movement, body positioning and the way tricks transition into one another.

That distinction matters more than it might initially appear. Scooter tricks depend heavily on the relationship between the rider’s hands, the handlebar and the deck, so animations need to communicate whether the rider is rotating the bars, spinning the deck beneath their feet or combining several motions into a larger aerial sequence. Riders Republic remains an arcade sports game rather than a simulation, but the exaggerated trick system still needs a credible physical foundation if the moves are going to read correctly at speed.

Season 20 therefore launches the Scooter with an extensive dedicated trick list, allowing players to explore both technical rail riding and larger aerial combinations. It fits naturally into The Deck and other urban areas introduced through the Skate expansion, but the toy is not locked to one purpose-built location. Like most of Riders Republic’s equipment, it can be taken across the broader open world and used wherever the terrain allows.

Ethic and Envy bring real Scooter culture into the game

The new discipline arrives with two major brands from the real-world Scooter scene. Ethic and Envy both have official builds represented in Riders Republic, giving the launch a stronger connection to the sport than a completely fictional equipment lineup would provide.

Players can use the Ethic collaboration Custom Scooter and the AOSV6 Complete Scooter from Envy, while Ubisoft’s own Ridge Full Send Scooter completes the initial selection. The accompanying cosmetic lineup includes the Headliner Full Send outfit, the Ethic Vertigo outfit with its hoodie and cap, and the Black Heart City Flex Premium outfit, although the latter does not itself include the Scooter.

Season 20 also broadens its brand collaborations beyond the new sport. Spyder and Element outfits have entered the in-game store, with the Fasthouse Helix Monaco outfit scheduled to follow later in the season. That mixture is consistent with how Riders Republic has developed since launch, regularly using real outdoor-sports and streetwear brands alongside increasingly extravagant fictional equipment and Ubisoft crossover items.

The effect is particularly noticeable during an anniversary season. Riders Republic began as a celebration of skiing, snowboarding, biking and wingsuit sports, but five years of additions have progressively blurred the boundaries between those original disciplines. Skateboards, BMX, mountainboards, hoverboards, miniature vehicles, snowmobiles and now Scooters all occupy the same open world, turning the Republic into something much broader than the launch version’s original list of sports.

Eleven existing events have been rebuilt around Scooter riding

The Scooter also has a more substantial event package than its classification as a Toy might suggest. Ubisoft has adapted 11 existing Skate and BMX events into Scooter-compatible versions, effectively creating a small career-style progression route for players who own the new equipment.

These are familiar locations and event structures rather than 11 completely new courses, but the change of equipment can significantly alter how they are approached. Lines originally designed around a skateboard or BMX become new optimisation problems once Scooter-specific tricks, rotations and landing behaviour are introduced, particularly in score-based challenges where maintaining combinations matters more than simply reaching the finish.

Access to these 11 Scooter Classic Events requires ownership of the Scooter. This is therefore paid gameplay content rather than part of Season 20’s universally accessible anniversary celebration. Ubisoft has used similar models before, allowing new Toys to operate throughout the open world while attaching dedicated events to the relevant purchase.

The approach gives the Scooter enough structured content to demonstrate its mechanics without creating an entirely separate career comparable with the game’s largest expansions. For players primarily interested in free roaming, parks and user-created events, however, the broader value is likely to come from having another technical freestyle option available across the Republic.

The best Scooter riders can earn a Golden version

Season 20 also begins with a developer-created User Generated Event, or UGE, designed specifically around the Scooter. Players are given a limited period in which to produce the highest possible score, with the leaderboard becoming considerably more important than in an ordinary seasonal challenge.

Only the top 10 players will receive the Golden Scooter reward. Ubisoft’s broader Season 20 announcement refers to the prize as the Golden Ticket Scooter skin, while the shorter seasonal overview describes it simply as a Golden Scooter, but the underlying requirement is clear: this is intended as an extremely exclusive leaderboard reward rather than something earned simply by completing the event.

That competitive structure gives experienced trick players an immediate reason to learn the new toy at a much deeper level. Understanding which rotations can be safely combined, where the most efficient scoring lines lie and how to maximise airtime without sacrificing landings should matter considerably more when only ten positions qualify for the reward.

The event also demonstrates how important the User Generated Event system has become to Riders Republic’s later years. Ubisoft increasingly uses the same tools available to the community to create official challenges, while seasonal contests and featured player creations allow the existing map to support new activities without requiring a completely new physical location every few months.

Five years of Riders Republic are being celebrated across Ubisoft

The Scooter may be Season 20’s mechanical centrepiece, but the fifth anniversary is its larger theme. Riders Republic originally launched on October 28, 2021, and Ubisoft is using the weeks surrounding that date to turn the season progression into a retrospective celebration involving several of its other franchises.

Anniversary rewards include a Brawlhalla snowboard, For Honor snowboard, Skull and Bones snowboard and The Crew Motorfest snowboard, alongside a Just Dance Panda outfit and a Rayman BMX. Rather than relying entirely on Riders Republic nostalgia, Ubisoft is effectively using its wider catalogue as the anniversary costume party, giving players equipment that connects the Republic to games with very different identities.

Rayman is particularly well suited to this approach because Ubisoft’s mascot has repeatedly appeared across the publisher’s games in smaller promotional roles, while The Crew Motorfest is Riders Republic’s closest modern relative within Ubisoft’s catalogue: both are large open-world multiplayer games structured around vehicles, sports culture, seasonal updates and an emphasis on constantly moving between activities.

The anniversary progression therefore works on two levels. Long-time players receive recognisable rewards marking five years of Riders Republic, while the crossover approach makes the season visually distinctive even for someone who joined much later and has little attachment to the game’s earliest seasonal content.

Ubisoft is saving part of the anniversary reveal for October 20

Not everything planned for the birthday has been announced yet. Ubisoft will hold a dedicated fifth-anniversary livestream on October 20, with the broadcast scheduled for 18:00 Spanish mainland time through the Ubisoft Twitch channel.

The stream is expected to include announcements, reveals and special guests, while Ubisoft has already confirmed several pieces of the anniversary programme ahead of time. An in-game concert experience is planned with an as-yet-unannounced artist or DJ, and the identity of that performer is scheduled to be revealed on October 16. A special anniversary event and Twitch Drops will accompany the celebrations as well.

An in-game concert is no longer entirely new territory for Riders Republic. Ubisoft used Season 17 to host a performance from French electronic artist Myd inside The Deck, transforming part of the social hub into a music venue and providing associated cosmetics. The anniversary event appears to build on that concept rather than treating the earlier experiment as a one-off.

The October 20 livestream is therefore the key date for understanding how large Ubisoft intends the anniversary celebration to become. Season 20 is already playable, but part of its roadmap is being deliberately held back until the birthday festivities properly begin.

A free weekend will open the Republic from October 22 to 26

Two days after the livestream, Riders Republic will become free to play from October 22 through October 26. Ubisoft describes it as a four-day free weekend, giving newcomers access to the game during the same period in which the anniversary activities are expected to be most visible.

Progress made during the trial will carry over if the player subsequently purchases the game. A sale is also planned around the anniversary period, although Ubisoft has not yet detailed every platform-specific discount in its Season 20 announcement.

The timing is strategically useful. Five years of post-launch development mean the current Riders Republic contains substantially more activities than the version released in 2021, including Skate and BMX content, numerous Toys, user-generated creations and a long history of seasonal systems. A free period attached to the anniversary lets Ubisoft present that accumulated game rather than asking new players to judge the title according to its launch-era feature set.

It also coincides with the announcement that Riders Republic has reached 17 million lifetime players. Ubisoft is not claiming 17 million active users or 17 million copies sold, so the figure should be read specifically as total players who have entered the game across its lifetime, including subscription access and previous free periods. Even with that qualification, reaching the milestone five years after launch shows that the Republic has maintained a much longer tail than a conventional annualised sports game.

The Full Send Finale will bring the entire year back together

Season 20 will eventually close with the Ridge Full Send show, also described in Ubisoft’s seasonal overview as the Full Send Finale. During the final two weeks of the season, players will be able to use the Toys and equipment introduced throughout the complete Ridge Full Send year in a developer-created event centred on the game’s enormous X Games ramp.

That effectively turns the finale into a recap of Seasons 17 through 20. The Whiplash, Pockett Dirt Bike, Pockett Stunt content and Scooter were originally separated across an entire year of updates, but the closing event brings those additions back into one activity rather than allowing each to disappear from the seasonal spotlight as soon as the next Toy arrives.

Using the X Games ramp is an appropriate choice because it represents the exaggerated side of Riders Republic particularly well. The game has always sat somewhere between authentic extreme-sports culture and arcade spectacle, and the Full Send equipment has generally pushed toward the latter. Cycling through a year’s worth of unusual machinery on one of the Republic’s largest stunt structures is a suitably excessive way to end that roadmap.

It also creates a cleaner transition into whatever Ubisoft plans next. The Ridge Full Send Pack was explicitly built as the content identity for Year 5, so Season 20 is not merely another quarter of updates. It is the conclusion of a complete annual programme whose replacement has not yet been fully detailed.

Five years later, Riders Republic is still expanding sideways instead of replacing itself

Season 20 illustrates why Riders Republic has survived considerably longer than its original release window might have suggested. Ubisoft has not attempted to transform the game into a traditional yearly sports franchise with sequels replacing old content. Instead, it has continued expanding the same oversized outdoor playground sideways, adding increasingly different forms of movement and finding ways to make old spaces useful to new disciplines.

The Scooter is an ideal example. It does not require Ubisoft to construct another giant map, but it changes how players interact with rails, parks and urban spaces that have existed for years. The 11 repurposed events use familiar layouts while demanding a new trick vocabulary, and the developer-made UGE turns the same mechanics into a high-level leaderboard competition. Later, the Full Send Finale will reuse established landmarks while combining equipment released across four separate seasons.

That approach inevitably means not every update feels like a conventional expansion. Some content is paid, many events repurpose existing locations and the seasonal structure continues to depend heavily on cosmetics and collaborations. But five years of support have also given Riders Republic an identity few other sports games share: almost anything capable of sliding, rolling, flying or behaving irresponsibly on a mountain can eventually find a place in the Republic.

Season 20 pushes that philosophy one step further while giving Ubisoft an opportunity to celebrate the community that kept the game alive long enough to reach this point. The Scooter is available now alongside the start of Season 20, the fifth-anniversary livestream takes place on October 20, the free weekend runs from October 22–26, and the Ridge Full Send Finale will close the season after five years and 17 million lifetime players in the Republic.