Alto's Odyssey: A Complete Guide to the Desert Sandboarding Runner

By Nham Vu · Updated July 2026

Alto's Odyssey is an endless runner and sandboarding game built by Team Alto, published by Snowman on iOS and Noodlecake Studios on Android, and released on February 21, 2018. It sends Alto and a rotating cast of friends sliding across a procedurally generated desert, chaining tricks, dodging hazards and unlocking new biomes as they go.

It's a direct follow-up to Alto's Adventure, and honestly the better game in a lot of ways. The core loop is still dead simple to pick up, one tap to jump, hold to backflip, but the world it happens in got a serious upgrade. What follows is a practical look at how the game plays, what makes it click, and where you can actually go play it.

Is Alto's Odyssey an Endless Runner?

Yes, Alto's Odyssey is classified as an endless runner and sandboarding game, and it plays that way from the first run. The desert scrolls forward automatically and never truly ends, with terrain generated as you go rather than hand-built into fixed levels.

What separates it from a lot of endless runners I've played is how much verticality got added. You're not just avoiding obstacles on flat ground, you're grinding rooftop wires, riding hot air currents upward, and dropping into underground caverns lit by glowing crystals. That variety keeps a genre that can get repetitive feeling fresh for a lot longer than it has any right to.

Is Alto's Odyssey a Sequel to Alto's Adventure?

Alto's Odyssey is a standalone sequel to 2015's Alto's Adventure, moving the setting from snowy mountains to a sun-baked desert. It's not a direct narrative continuation so much as a spiritual one, same team, same one-touch control philosophy, new environment and new tricks.

In practice the sequel adds mechanics the original never had: wall riding, hot air balloon convoys to raid, and wingsuit flight. If you already burned out on Alto's Adventure, Odyssey gives you enough new toys that it doesn't feel like more of the same. A later release, Alto's Odyssey: The Lost City, expanded the formula further with a proper campaign structure and new zones.

How Do You Play Alto's Odyssey?

Alto's Odyssey uses a one-touch control scheme where a single tap makes your character jump and holding the tap performs a backflip in midair. Landing tricks cleanly builds speed, while botching a landing slows you down or ends the run if you crash badly enough.

New players tend to overcomplicate this. The trick isn't memorizing combos, it's reading the terrain a few seconds ahead and timing jumps off ramps, rooftops and dune crests. The best players I've watched barely look like they're doing anything, they just never mistime a jump.

• Tap once to jump over gaps and rocks
• Hold the tap while airborne to backflip for trick points
• Land smoothly on downward slopes to keep your combo alive
• Grind wires and rails by riding along them instead of jumping past them
• Chain tricks back-to-back before landing to multiply your score

How Do You Use the Wingsuit in Alto's Odyssey?

The wingsuit is unlocked as you progress and lets Alto glide through the air after launching off a ramp or cliff edge, giving you extended airtime to grind rails, dodge hazards or set up combos that wouldn't be possible on the ground. You activate it automatically once unlocked whenever you get enough air, and steer with tilt or touch depending on your control settings.

What trips up new players is treating the wingsuit like a jump extender instead of a tool for line control. It's most useful for threading narrow gaps between rock formations or lining up a landing on a distant rooftop. Once you get a feel for the glide angle, it opens up whole sections of the map that are basically inaccessible any other way.

What Platforms Is Alto's Odyssey Available On?

Alto's Odyssey launched on iOS in February 2018 and later reached Android through Noodlecake Studios, along with PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch console versions. A remastered edition also exists on modern app stores with updated visuals and controller support.

There's no official native Mac or Steam release of the original mobile version, which is a common point of confusion given how often people search for it on PC. Console owners get the closest thing to a proper PC-style experience through the Switch and PS4 ports.

• iOS (iPhone and iPad)
• Android
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation 4
• Alto's Odyssey: Remastered on modern app stores

How Is Alto's Odyssey Reviewed by Critics and Players?

Alto's Odyssey holds strong critical standing, having won an Apple Design Award in 2018 and picked up a BAFTA Games Award nomination for Mobile Game plus an IGF finalist nod for its visual art and audio. That's a rare combination of recognition for a mobile-first title.

Player sentiment lines up with that praise. The wall riding, stream gliding and pool dipping mechanics get singled out repeatedly by fans as the things that keep runs interesting long after the first hour. What sticks with most players isn't difficulty, it's the atmosphere: the shifting light of a full day-night cycle and the way weather rolls across the dunes while you ride.

What Makes Alto's Odyssey Worth Playing Today?

Alto's Odyssey remains worth playing for its trick system, its varied biomes (dunes, canyons, ruins and underground caves) and a soundtrack composed by Torin Borrowdale that shifts with the environment. The 180 in-game goals give the endless structure actual direction instead of leaving you to just chase a high score forever.

If you're deciding between this and the original Alto's Adventure, the honest answer is that Odyssey does more with the same foundation. It's the version of the formula I'd point a new player toward first.