Hello Riftbreakers,
We’ve got some great news to share with you today - we have created a roadmap of our plans moving forward AND there is a new update for The Riftbreaker live now!
Let’s start by talking about the roadmap. It is an outline of our plans for the post-launch support of the game - something that a lot of you have been asking us about. We designed our roadmap to inform you about both our short and long-term goals. It is not set in stone - we try to be flexible in our approach to development. As a result, things will probably move around quite a bit. That being said, we will do our best to keep this roadmap up to date. We will also keep posting news and sneak peeks of new features, just like we did before the release.
Enough talking, let’s take a look at the roadmap itself:
MODDING AND CAMPAIGN UPDATE:
By the end of this year, we plan to hand you the keys to creating your own Riftbreaker maps (tiles to be exact), missions and much more! The full suite of game editing tools that we used to create the entirety of content for The Riftbreaker. This comes in pair with a new Mod folder which will help with organizing multiple mods at once and will make creating and packaging your own content much easier. The Riftbreaker will allow you to make next-level mods, tweak all the parameters and discover what makes the game tick. Apart from that, we are going to introduce further changes to difficulty balance in the Campaign Mode, as well as give you the option to customize the difficulty settings. That will be accompanied by smaller bug fixes, tweaks, smaller feature additions and quality of life changes suggested by you!
WORLD EXPANSION I:
In the first half of 2022 we will focus on delivering a new biome with all the things you would expect from it: unique wildlife, special weather events, more types of collectibles, weapons, skills and upgrades. Ashely and Mr. Riggs will get to explore an entirely new area of the planet, discovering new secrets and learning how to survive in its conditions.
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The new biome and all of its content will be available for free, to play in Survival mode and to be used in any mods. The story-driven Campaign Mode expansion will be a paid DLC. This update will obviously take some time to develop and we will be releasing smaller patches before the DLC hits the shelves. The tentative date for this is March/April.
ONLINE MULTIPLAYER:
The development of the online mode for The Riftbreaker is running at the same time as everything we mentioned before. Introducing online play to the game will require us to refactor a large part of the engine, but it’s the #1 requested feature, and we’re already working on it. We are hoping to have the update ready by the end of 2022. Our top priority and the ‘minimum’ plan is online co-op. However, if things go well and we have sufficient time it’s not out of the question that we are going to include some other game modes as well. This will come to all owners of The Riftbreaker as a free update. We will for sure need some help testing the online mode before it is ready and we will come to you for assistance. Our Discord community Riftbreaker Veterans are sure to receive front row seats ;)
FEATURES IN CONCEPT:
This is a long list of things that would be nice to have in the game. Those ideas came either from you or have been brewing inside our heads for some time now. We will be picking and choosing which feature to work on next based on your suggestions, so keep them coming! We plan to release more than just one World Expansion in 2022, so the list is going to change dynamically. We will keep you posted - both here and on the Discord.
The roadmap will always be available on our Steam Store Page and the EXOR Studios Discord: www.discord.gg/exorstudios.
The other piece of news for today is the balancing and quality of life update, previously available on the experimental branch. The changes from this patch affect mostly the Campaign Mode, altering the difficulty levels more towards what you would expect. These changes do not require you to restart your campaign - once the patch is applied, all events in your game moving forward will use the updated values. As always, we also included some small quality of life improvements and bug fixes. The full changelog is available below.
We are not slowing down - the fun part has just begun! We’re already working on a new update to go into testing on the experimental branch within a few days.
The Riftbreaker Balancing (but not only) Update, Package #77, Binaries #478, November 23rd, 2021.
Campaign Mode Balancing:
- Changes have been introduced to the gameplay difficulty on Easy, Hard, and Brutal on all Mining Outpost Missions. Easy is easier, Hard is harder and Brutal is brutal. Difficulty balancing changes are multilayered; on the higher difficulty settings enemy attacks arrive slightly more often, attack wave difficulty increases slightly faster and attack wave composition includes more varied units as well as Alpha and Ultra strains. All difficulty balancing changes take effect immediately after loading the game - the next attack wave that you encounter is going to be already stronger.
- Introduced new attack wave composition on the Headquarters map and the Cobalt Mining Outpost.
- Slightly decreased attack strength on Easy and Normal on the Headquarters map.
- The icons in the Research Screen have been updated to improve readability. Here’s what they look like now:
BASE AND BUILDINGS:
WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT:
ALIEN RESEARCH:
- Added Hedroner spawns on sludge pools in all campaign mode Acidic Plains missions.
- Updated Tanzanite Concentration map generation settings (more mushrooms!).
- Updated Rhodonite Concentration map generation settings (more crystals!).
- Tanzanite Concentration mission includes much more Bulbus Pirum Purpura.
- Ferdonite Concentration mission includes much more Vitreus Implexus Corulus.
- Improved radar range display on the minimap - the area of effect of multiple radars merges together to improve the clarity of the minimap.
- Fixed multiple crash bugs.
As always, we are waiting for your feedback on our official Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios.
EXOR Studios