Hello Riftbreakers!
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If you take a look at the comments sections for our articles as of late, you will notice that the same handful of questions keep turning up: What’s next for The Riftbreaker? Is there more content coming? When? Although we have been answering all those questions one at a time, we have never actually put together a structured Q&A. Today, we are going to fix this mistake and go through the list of most frequently asked questions in detail. We hope that by summarizing our answers in one article, we can set your expectations for the future and clarify where we stand right now. Let’s start with the question we get most often.
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Are you planning any more updates for The Riftbreaker?
Yes. The next update, World Expansion V, focuses on Survival mode. If you haven’t played Survival in a while, here’s a quick reminder: you choose a biome, play solo or with friends, and your goal is to survive for 90 minutes. Mr. Riggs starts each mission with a set loadout of helpful skills and items to help you handle enemy waves that get stronger every few minutes. You’ll need to build a solid base quickly to stand up to the Galatean hordes, using a modified tech tree that lets you reach endgame builds faster. If you beat the final wave at 90 minutes, you win.
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Survival mode hasn’t changed much since the early days of The Riftbreaker, but the 90-minute timer has always been on our minds. It’s a good length for a challenging run, but sometimes you have a great game and beat the final wave easily, with no way to keep going. We’re exploring ways to let those runs continue, possibly even adding an endless mode. Also, World Expansion V will be a free update for everyone.
With how big our past World Expansions have been, you might be wondering why this one is taking longer. You deserve a clear answer. After releasing the 2.0 Update with Co-Op and World Expansion IV, we decided to start working on a new game and a new version of our engine. We’ve been working on The Riftbreaker for almost eight years now, and we had to take a breath of fresh air. If you’ve seen our Discord changelogs, you know things haven’t been business as usual. Most of our focus has been on the new game and upgrading to Schmetterling 3.0.
We’re really excited about these new projects. While we don’t have anything to show yet, we’re happy with where things are headed. The engine work is especially rewarding, since many of the improvements can be brought back into Schmetterling 2.0 to make The Riftbreaker better and set up World Expansion V. Once we finish updating the engine and complete the first round of concept work on the new game, we’ll focus fully on the new Riftbreaker expansion.
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If all this sounds reasonable, don’t worry! In true EXOR style, we couldn’t just work on two big projects at once. To keep things interesting, we’ve also started a smaller side project. We’re making something unexpected, just for fun and to try something new. You’ll get to see what it is sometime between the release of World Expansion V and the announcement of our next big project.
There’s one more thing to know about World Expansion V: it will be the last major content update for The Riftbreaker. After it’s released, we’ll be moving on to other projects we’ve been working on alongside The Riftbreaker. Of course, we’ll still provide support if anything breaks, but this will be the final big content update.
Is there going to be a new DLC?
No. We are not planning any new DLC for The Riftbreaker. We consider the story of Ashley and Mr. Riggs finished. Together, they have been through hell and back, saving the peaceful world of Galatea 37 from a disaster of cosmic proportions several times already. Canonically, they have achieved their goals, and we are happy with the state of the world as it is right now. We will let our heroes rest for now. We will see where their missions take them next.
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Now, let’s look at it from a more practical side. Making another piece of paid content that is genuinely worth asking money for would be an enormous amount of work. We have done it three times now, and we know exactly how much effort and mental capacity it requires. We'd much rather put that effort into something new. The Riftbreaker is still a game we're incredibly proud of, and we're not done taking care of it. We just want the next world we build for you to be a brand new one.
So, Riftbreaker 2 when?
A sequel is not completely out of the question. However, it’s probably not happening for a long time. We went into game development because we like creating worlds, and it’s high time we created a new one. We are going to shift gears, come up with another story worth telling, and possibly change the setting a little bit while we’re at it. We have a pretty good idea of where we want to take you next, and it is not the world of the Riftbreaker. At least for now.
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That’s all we can share for now. If there’s one thing we want you to remember, it’s that there’s a lot to look forward to. The Riftbreaker has had years of updates, expansions, and changes that many thought weren’t possible. We’ve learned how to make better tech and better games. We’ve also built an amazing community that’s helped us improve the game and made it their own with hundreds of mods. World Expansion V is our way of closing this chapter and starting a new one. We’re building a new world for you to explore, conquer, and make your own. The new engine is coming together, and our new projects are taking shape behind the scenes.
We’re itching to tell you about both.
If you’d like to know what the next big things are going to be, join our Discord at https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios and sign up for our newsletter at https://www.exorstudios.com/blog/#newsletter. That way, you will surely receive the news about our next steps.
See you next time!
EXOR Studios