Hello!
One of the most frequently asked questions we get about The Riftbreaker (right after ‘What’s the release date?’ and ‘Will there be multiplayer?’) is whether the game will support mods. The short answer is - yes. The Riftbreaker is easily moddable. The longer answer requires a little bit of backstory, so let’s dive into it!
The mods range from inside jokes to entirely changing the way the game plays out!
Did you know that EXOR Studios started out as a modding group? Most of the original members of the team have known each other since they were little kids, growing up in the same neighborhood and attending the same elementary school. Even back then, video games were a major part of their lives, which was not uncommon for kids their age. What made the proto-EXOR different was that these guys have always been interested in how the games actually run, how they can modify them, and what they can do in order to make them different.
The working conditions in the early days were quite different from what we are used to nowadays. That's tea, BTW.
Let’s fast forward a couple of adventurous and turbulent years, filled with working a regular day job, developing mods at night, and fragging each other in Quake 3 in between. D.I.P.R.I.P. was born - a Source Engine mod focused on online vehicular combat in a post-apocalyptic environment. (Fun fact - it was one of the first five mods published officially on Steam, back in 2008). As D.I.P.R.I.P matured, so did EXOR Studios. We became an officially registered company. We continued working our regular jobs until 2007 when we all quit our company and focused entirely on EXOR.
Some buildings that do not have a use in the survival mode just yet have received mods to repurpose them.
‘Why is that even relevant, and why should I care?’ you may ask. Well, since we know what kind of obstacles we had to overcome as modders, we can do something so that you don’t have to navigate a minefield in order to run a modded version of The Riftbreaker. The data structure of the game is not obfuscated at all - you can simply open up the game’s zip files and take a look into all the assets and entities. Knowing the data structure, you can tweak and replace anything you like.
You can change almost anything you like - for example, you can create your own, custom flags or skins for Mr. Riggs.
In fact, there is quite a thriving modding community on our Discord server already! There are mods changing the balance aspects of the game, repurposing some buildings or even adding completely new game modes altogether. What is worth mentioning here is the fact that all these mods are meant for The Riftbreaker: Prologue, which is insane - we would never have expected someone to start developing mods so early, let alone for a demo version of the game! If you would like to check them out join us at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and look for the rb-modding channel.
We have many questions about this one. What's in the box?!
Importantly, we want to support the modding community as much as we can. After the release of version 1.0 of The Riftbreaker we are going to give you access to all the developer tools we use to make the game (Notepad++ is NOT included). With that you will have practically unlimited access to maps, missions and more. Since we’re online almost 100% of the time, you can also ask us any questions you might have directly through Discord, which should make modding the game a lot easier. We’re also looking into a couple of integrated solutions that would enable you to easily share and download your creations.
Mods allow you to end up in a lot of interesting situations...
We hope that this clears up our attitude and plans towards modding in general. Join us on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios on Thursday at 3 PM CET to see some of the mods in action!
P.S. The screenshots in this article have been provided by our wonderful community members: Harkonnen, Frognik and SenorRagequit. Thank you very much!
See you then!
EXOR Studios