Recreating real resorts and mountains is something we've been asked about by both community members and potential business partners. Unfortunately, it's a little harder than just taking a map and some reference photos and just remaking the slopes.
From a technical standpoint, recreating something that people are so familiar with is extremely challenging for both pure visual aspects but also space/area allocation. Even though we have recreated the exact physics of skiing in SNOW, spaces still feels very different as you don't have the exact same precision controls and direct contact as you do in real life. On top of that, the game would feel very slow if we didn't make minor adjustments to both core riding but also the camera movement. Skiing fast is fun in real life, but that's because there is real danger involved and the feeling of speed is much greater than in a game.
From a business side, recreating a ski resort requires a bunch of authorisation that isn't necessarily easy to obtain. Most things you ski past and around are owned by various companies and would require the proper licensing from us to be able to recreate in a game. It's not impossible, it's just a bunch of extra red tape.
That isn't saying we would never consider it when the game is up and running, but right now we're not going to look into it. We WILL have sufficient piste and terrain park areas for you to spend time in and they will include tree lines that you can cut off into and explore. These areas will be created with plenty of inspiration from favourite ski locations as well as from input from the community. Unlike real slopes, we can design ours to maximise the amount of things to do in any given space, so we believe users will be quite content with what's on offer.
Hope that answers your question/comment.
