Beginner tips: climb higher

The basics

Drive UP: Together is a co-op climbing game built on a proper driving simulation. Up to eight players drive the same route up one mountain at the same time. Every car is solid, there are no checkpoints, and a fall sends you back to the bottom. You’ll fall a lot at first. Everyone does.

Driving tips

1. Momentum is everything. Too little and you slide back down a ramp. Too much and you sail straight over the platform you were aiming for. Practice a few "medium" approaches before you try a full-speed one.
2. Commit on steep ramps. Some ramps are so steep that stopping halfway isn’t an option. Pick your speed at the bottom and hold your line.
3. Respect the weight transfer. The car behaves like a real car: braking shifts the weight forward, and too much throttle can step the rear out. Smooth inputs beat fast inputs on thin planks.
4. Expect suspension at crests. The suspension compresses over every crest and the car can go light on the other side. Ease off before the top of a bump, not on it.
5. Watch your grip on steel. Tires can lose grip on steel ramps at the worst moment. Take metal sections slower and straighter than they look.

Reading the course

The course is designed to throw you off: planks barely wider than your axles, pipes, near-vertical ramps, tilting platforms, swinging obstacles and drops you can’t see the bottom of. Every section has a line that works. Your job is to find it.

• Pipes: one wrong steering input and you ping-pong between the walls. Use small corrections and keep the car centered.
• Thin planks: line the car up before the plank starts. Correcting on the plank is how you leave it.
• Tilting platforms and swinging obstacles: watch a full cycle before you go. Timing beats speed.
• Let someone go first. In a group, watching a friend try a new section is the cheapest lesson in the game.

Playing as a team

Helping and ruining use exactly the same controls, so your group decides what kind of night it’ll be.

• Be the bridge. Park across a gap so a friend can drive over you. Stay still, and tell them when you’re in position.
• Be the engine. Line up behind a friend and push them over a ledge no single car can clear. Start the push gently: a hard hit sends them sideways, not up.
• Rescue carefully. Cars get wedged, sometimes on their roof between two beams. To free someone, line up slowly and shunt. Some of the best moments in the game are a whole group abandoning their runs to save one stuck friend. Some of the worst are when the "rescue" sends them straight off the edge.
• Agree on betrayal rules. Tapping a bumper one wheel from the summit is part of the game. Decide early whether it’s allowed tonight, because nobody in the lobby forgets.
• Use voice chat. "Wait", "push now", "I’m stuck in the pipe". Short calls keep a group of eight from piling up on one plank.

Setting up your first lobby

Getting started takes about a minute: invite friends from your Steam friends list, pick a color for your car and drop into the lobby. You can also climb solo to learn the route first. The game is playable in 30 languages and has Steam achievements and leaderboards.

Drive UP: Together is in Early Access, so expect updates, balance changes and the occasional bug, especially in full 8-player lobbies. Tell us where you fell (or what broke) on Discord. Follow updates on our news page.

Looking for similar games for the rest of the week? See the best co-op climbing games and games like Chained Together.