Hello Riftbreakers!
We have some exciting news for you right off the bat. We are speeding up the delivery of your beta keys. We want to give access to everyone who signed up for the beta via our Google Form by the end of this month. Additionally, you can now sign up for the Closed Beta of the Co-Op mode via the Steam Playtest access request right on the store page of The Riftbreaker. This is an additional option for those who can’t or don’t want to sign up via Google Forms. If you sign up this way, you will be granted access to the beta next month.
You can request Beta Access here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/780310/The_Riftbreaker/
And now, back to the regular preview content!
Most of the time, when we talk about the features of the upcoming Riftbreaker updates, we talk about the Co-Op Multiplayer mode. Working on this part of the project has made up a large portion of the last three years for us. Still, Co-Op is only one part of The Riftbreaker 2.0. Another considerable part of this free release will be the new endgame portion of the Story Campaign. It will expand and enhance the game's single and multiplayer experience, and we can’t wait to see you play it! This is a huge topic, and we can’t cover it all with just one news piece. Today’s article will give a general overview of the main objectives and the new activities we have prepared for you. Then, we will expand on the extra buildings, tech, and activities in additional articles. Let’s dive in!
!!! STORY SPOILER ALERT !!!
Please bear in mind that this article will contain technical and lore spoilers for the ending of The Riftbreaker’s main Story Campaign and the new endgame expansion. If you want to discover these parts of the game yourself, we recommend skipping this article for now!
The ending of the main branch of the Campaign gives you a choice: you can either go back to Earth and call it quits or stay on the planet and prepare it for the inevitable arrival of humanity. If you decide to return home, your Galatean adventure is over. You go back to your friends, family, the Riftbreaker command, and await your next assignment. The new, expanded endgame campaign starts if you stay on Galatea. Ashley mentioned several times in passing that she had a much better alternative for this planet - one that doesn’t involve turning Galatea 37 into a shell of its former glory by stripping it clean of its ample natural resources. It will take some time for humans to re-establish a connection with Galatea, so you have some time to work with.
Setting up the Rift Station is going to feel like child's play compared to what you are going to build in the endgame.
During previous Riftbreaking operations, humans always followed the path of least resistance. Instead of trying to understand, preserve, and protect their new colony world, their only goal was to build more factories, power plants, and dwellings. There was no ill intent behind these actions. Humanity has its needs - this is simply the quickest way to fulfill them. It comes at a cost - every new planet quickly becomes a carbon copy of Earth - a giant, sprawling city, with little trace of its natural ecosystem. Ashley hopes that she can prevent it when it comes to Galatea 37.
This GIF kinda gives you an idea of the sheer scale of these structures.
The technology to protect the planet's ecosystem is out there - humans just don’t bother building it because it’s expensive and complicated. Ashle’s plan is simple - do all the heavy lifting and build the infrastructure herself before other humans arrive. This involves building five megastructures. The megastructures are truly monumental facilities, much bigger than even the Rift Station itself. Each of the five structures you build serves a different purpose, but combined together, they will allow you to minimize your impact on Galatea 37 while still reaping the benefits of a brand-new colony world and its ample natural resources.
Here are your mission objectives - the five megastructures:
Quantum Cortex Laboratory - It is the brain of the entire operation. This building houses a quantum supercomputer that will store and analyze all the data for you. Having an operational Quantum Cortex Lab boosts your research speed by a significant margin and allows you to research other megastructures from the brand-new fourth research tab.
This is the fully built-up Quantum Cortex Laboratory with the setup required to run it. Start saving up your supercharged plasma today!
Nanobot Swarm Production and Control Center - Ashley will need lots of helping hands during her mission to protect Galatea’s ecosystem. Nanobots are perfect for that purpose, and this building will serve as their base of operations.
The view from the model editor, with close-ups of some details.
Gravitational Hyper Lens - This structure will serve as a giant stabilizer for the gravitational and magnetic fields of the planet, ensuring your systems stay operational for a long time.
As you can see, the megastructures are not only unique when it comes to the size - they also come in various shapes. Each of them will require you to find a suitable spot.
Hydroponic Sustainability Lab - This Laboratory will store, replicate, and nurture all the samples and saplings collected from among the Galatean wildlife.
Is this the fanciest greenhouse you've ever seen or what?
Mystery Building - We are not quite ready to tell you what this structure is. We can't show it, either. (Totally not because the model is not finished yet). It might be a giant computer, or an antenna, or a factory of some kind. Who knows? Put your best guesses in the comments!
The stages of building up the Nanobot Center. Building megastructures piece by piece will allow you to see the progress you make in real time, and pay the cost in just five easy installments!
Construction of your megastructures will take place in stages. Each stage will add new elements to the building, allowing you to see the progress you make. Building the megastructures piece by piece also makes their cost more palatable. However, you have to know that this will be a huge investment. The megastructures have a high upfront building cost and upkeep requirements. Your existing infrastructure most likely won’t be sufficient. This allows you to put the brand-new Orbital Scanner features to good use and establish new resource mining outposts.
Our artists have done an incredible job with the details on these buildings. They are our crown jewels!
If looking at the sheer size of these structures makes you shudder at the thought of reorganizing your existing bases, fear not. You don’t have to construct the megastructures in your Headquarters. Even better - they don’t need to be on the same map! You are free to organize them the way you like! Constructing all five of these buildings is a massive endeavor, and we don’t want to limit you in any way. If you want to set up five dedicated outposts for each megastructure - that is fine. You can also try to build all five on the same map for a bit of an extra challenge. It’s a crazy idea, but we like crazy.
Naturally, we couldn't resist playing around with some nice lights and reflections (although the effects and lights are not final yet!). Enjoy!
Designing a long-term mission like the one we’ve presented to you today involves a lot of variables. This is why we’re not sharing details like resource and upkeep costs yet. However, we can state that constructing the Rift Station is going to feel like a tutorial in comparison to the megastructures. Currently, we are playtesting the endgame internally - both solo and in the co-op mode. Each playtest we make is a new iteration with tweaked costs and requirements. Once we have something worthy of public scrutiny, we will let you play all this as an experimental update. As we prepare for the experimental release, you can expect more news about the endgame expansion in the coming weeks.
You can build these structures anywhere you like. There are no biome restrictions, and they do not need to be located within the same map.
We hope that this little sneak peek at the design of the free endgame expansion for The Riftbreaker got you excited for the upcoming updates. If you want to stay on top of all the news we publish, sign up for our newsletter, join our Discord at https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios, and join our streams at https://www.twitch.tv/exorstudios - we are live every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 PM CEST. Trust us - you don’t want to miss what is coming next!
EXOR Studios