The player controls Alto as he explores the endless desert across different biomes, each with unique traversal mechanics and challenges.

The player chooses between a cast of characters, each with different characteristics ranging from a higher jump to the ability to speed through rocks.

[3] In addition to wall-riding, the game adds new features, such as water physics, tornadoes, falling platforms, an invulnerability power-up, balloon bouncing; alongside mechanics returning from the first installment such as a day-night cycle, weather, and the wingsuit.

In Odyssey's "Workshop", the player can spend coins they collected in order to upgrade power-ups or unlock new abilities and features.

[8] On February 12, 2018, Team Alto announced the official release date with a trailer on their YouTube channel.

Wall-riding and balloon bouncing were added in order to build more verticality into environments as Team Alto felt the game world was too static in Adventure.

The new biomes expanded the scope of the game a great deal, with one developer commenting "That approach required us to virtually triple the amount of assets we were producing, and item zones we were creating to place content in the environment".

[11] The game aims for a 60 frames per second target, and uses lower quality shaders for weaker hardware in order to maintain performance.

Odyssey takes advantage of Apple's Haptic engine in order to give feedback for landing a trick or when the player interacts with the game world.

In an interview with Team Alto, they cited disappointing revenue for premium games on Android as the reason for turning to a free-to-play model.