Riftstorm – An ambitious blending of genres with real personality.

Taking elements from hero, looter, twin stick and extraction shooters, along with isometric arpg elements and combining them into one game is never going to be an easy task, even less so to actually balance all of these elements and make them make sense. Thankfully Rifstorm manages to not only combine all of these elements and more, but does so in such a way that the end result is both engaging and fun, and the more time I spent in this game the better it seemed to get, resulting in one of my most surprising gaming experiences so far this year.

Riftstorm (still in Early Access) has you playing through a mix of both procedurally generated, and curated missions as a ‘Weaver’, described as ‘an elite operative tasked with the closure of rifts and the containment of mythic threats’ and sees you taking control of one of five characters, Rook, Starling, Hertz, Botsy and Caracal (with more to come as the game continues development). Each of these weavers has their own unique skills and traits that can be levelled up as you progress through the game and each one has it’s own strengths and weaknesses and individual playstyle. You are able to unlock more of these characters as you play through the game and can freely switch between them when outside of a mission.

In terms of gameplay itself, Riftstorm uses an isometric view akin to games such as diablo, combat is controlled in a similar fashion to what I would call a twin stick shooter but with the addition of abilities that can be activated separately, during the individual missions you will encounter large crystals that can be interacted with to spawn a choice of buffs (in game these are known as lythograms), these temporary upgrades allow you to augment and enhance your chosen weaver’s abilities, and can result in some incredibly fun synergies. During missions you will also encounter rifts, interacting or ‘weaving’ these rifts will cause them to release a shower of loot such as materials or weapon boxes that will automatically be converted into weapons after successful extraction.

Speaking of extraction, Riftstorm uses a system that the developers have coined as ‘extraction-lite’, this takes the standard extraction shooter formula and tweaks it slightly to fit better into the games core gameplay loop. Missions can be have multiple objectives to complete, and failing one of these objectives does not always result in failing the mission, giving you the opportunity to still extract and earn some rewards. Conversely, completing objectives in a mission does not automatically end the mission, instead giving you the opportunity to continue with the mission and push for further rewards. Instead of the standard extraction shooter formula which sees you losing everything you carry when you are incapacitated or fail a mission, you will instead only lose the items gained during that mission, but with the added feature that is known as weapon scarring, whereby the weapons you currently have equipped will lose a positive perk that is then replaced with a random negative one instead, leaving the weapon still useable but forever ‘scarred’. This leads to an interesting risk versus reward system where you can decide on the fly if you should make a hasty getaway with your hard earned loot, or give in to the temptation of earning possibly better rewards.

Riftstorm also features weapon salvaging and crafting systems, with later unlocks providing the ability to focus this crafting to specific weapons as opposed to the initial crafting system that lets you choose the weapon type but will craft a random weapon of that archetype. There is also a system that allows you to craft ‘Periapts’, essentially mods for your character that can provide bonuses to specific stats and allow you to further fine tune your character builds, since this is an early access game, this system does not seem to be fully implemented yet, but will certainly make build crafting a lot more fun when it is.

Riftstorm is, at it’s heart, a co-op game. We were fortunate enough to be provided with an additional copy of the game in order to test this co-op functionality, and I can safely say that although it is perfectly playable as a solo player, it is in co-op mode that this game really shines. And although one of our team did run into a current known issue that causes framerate to drop when playing missions after the tutorial section, after using the suggested workaround that is described by the developers on the steam page, this issue was fixed and co-op was a mostly smooth experience, and since this is still an early access game, some teething problems are to be expected.

WildStarGaming Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

As I stated earlier, Riftstorm is a game that really ended up surprising me, the fast paced and intense combat combined with the additional systems comes together to form an incredibly satisfying gameplay loop that really did keep me coming back time and time again, and if the developers continue on the path they are currently on, I can see Riftstorm being a game that I will continue to revisit for some time to come. So no matter if you are a mostly solo player, or someone looking for a new game to play with friends, I highly recommend giving Riftstorm a try.

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