We have just released a sizeable update for The Riftbreaker. It features all the improvements and optimizations we introduced during the preparations for the Heart of the Swamp expansion console launch. A very large portion of the adaptations we had to make to launch the game on other platforms is compatible with the PC build and will result in performance improvements - especially on machines with less than 16 GB of RAM. We have also introduced plenty of gameplay fixes and improvements.

We hope this update improves your experience with The Riftbreaker. The full changelog can be found here:

• Reduced the number of building cubes spawned when building long wall sections, which should improve performance.
  
• After completing some objectives in the Fungal Forest Outpost the water surrounding your base should turn clean.
  
• Optimized OGG sound file playback mechanism. If you experienced sound stuttering or dialogues cutting off it should now be fixed.
  
• Added attack waves containing the enemies from the Fungal Forest biome to the Headquarters attack wave pool after the Heart of the Swamp storyline is completed.
  
• Optimized 'emissive' textures for many models by removing blank black areas, reducing memory and disk space usage.
  
• Reworked the 'Phirian attack' in-game event. Phirians now arrive as a group, coming from the edge of the map. Their strain and wave size depend on the difficulty level. The event is accompanied by new sound lines.
  
• Stregaros shield is now resistant to all types of damage, doesn't break immediately after the first shot.
  
• Player's repair drone has been buffed - it has longer range, travels faster and repairs buildings much quicker.
  
• Chainsaw movement speed penalty has been reduced.
  
• Replaced small bioanomaly models in all biomes with their new, regional variants.
  
• Buffed Cryo Sentry, Holo Decoy and Bioscanner Turret consumables - higher levels now have much better stats.
  
• Holo Decoy now has a bigger and stronger explosion on higher levels.
  
• Acid Cluster Grenade now has increased radius and added damage over time.
  
• Gas Grenade now has increased duration and damage on higher levels.
  
• Grenade now has a bigger splash damage radius on higher levels.
  
• Gravity Grenade now deals physical damage, increased area of effect and duration on higher levels.
  
• Sonic Grenade now has a bigger splash radius on higher levels.
  
• Mini Miners now get more HP on higher levels.
  
• Proximity, Cryo and Nuclear Mines now have a bigger splash damage radius on higher levels.
  
• The Antimatter Ball will no longer disappear outside the camera view.
  
• Acid, Cryo, Fire and Energy Trails now have increased damage trail lifetime on higher item levels at a cost of a bigger cooldown.
  
• Acid, Cryo, Fire and Energy Dash now have increased damage trail lifetime on higher item levels.
  
• Flamewave now has more range on higher levels.
  
• Repeater Rifle ammo consumption increased.
  
• Bouncing Blades ammo consumption increased.
  
• Reduced the strength of some camera shake effects.
  
• Added shooting sound for Minigun Towers.
  
• Changed shooting sounds for Laser Towers, as it used the same sound as the Flamer Tower.
  
• Reduced the size of the Rift Station minimap icon.
  
• Changed the layout of the Great Tree tile slightly to prevent unit navigation issues.
  
• Changed unit behavior to prevent them from walking over the Flammable Gas Vents.
  
• Added a 'cheat_remove_wave_units' command that will kill only the creatures that were spawned in the attack wave, allowing you to clear any blocked units without wiping the entire map.
  
• Tornados will now always cause enemies to turn to gibs to prevent the 'flying dead bodies' phenomenon.
  
• Traveling to other outposts is now blocked during the final Rift Station charging procedure.
  
• Added new objective markers - circles and arrows.
  
• Added Steel Floor to the Bioanomaly unlock pool. The item was present in the game, but was left out from the prize pool by mistake.

• Introduced many performance optimizations.
  
• Significantly reduced runtime memory usage.
  
• Fixed the game flow getting stuck if the canceroth lair was destroyed before the canceroth attack was defeated.
  
• The canceroth lair objective will start if the player reaches the canceroth lair before defeating the canceroth attack.
  
• The canceroth lair objective will be skipped if the canceroth lair is destroyed before the player reaches the canceroth lair.
  
• The canceroth attack may start sooner if the player progresses with other objectives faster to prevent out of order objective execution.
  
• Heart of the Swamp main campaign objective will now be removed after the campaign ending.
  
• Fixed the slow-spawning wingmite attack wave in the final wave of the Metallic Valley Survival Mode mission on Easy and Normal difficulty levels.
  
• Fixed some issues with the Metal Terror's "Manufacturing Plateau" familiarity mission objective flow.
  
• Fixed the Metal Terror storyline starting trigger. The DLC story will now start if you complete two scouting missions on other biomes OR if you set up a Cobalt Mining Outpost.
  
• Introduced some optimizations to the saving process. By reducing the amount of data copied during saving, the hiccup on save should be less noticeable and the saving process should be much quicker.
  
• You should no longer get announcements about the base being under attack when Sentry Turrets are being attacked and destroyed.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from restoring options to default values in the options menu.
  
• Fixed an issue in Phirian sword attack that caused it to miss the player sometimes.
  
• Fixed the damage over time values in all variants of the Crystal Gun.
  
• Fixed the Firestorm event voice lines not matching the appropriate character avatars.
  
• Fixed issues with updating resource limits after an Outpost with resource storages is removed.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the build mode selector to always appear in the top-left corner when using the gamepad.
  
• Fixed multiple issues with Liquid Compressors and Decompressors usage across multiple maps.
  
• Fixed issues with the menu navigation on the Custom Difficulty Screen.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused some units to get stuck while navigating through liquid pools.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused Mudroners to sometimes get stuck in one spot.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused some main menu localizations to overlap.
  
• Fixed a crash in lift.lua when the object you're trying to carry gets destroyed.
  
• Fixed hitboxes on the Weapon Modding screen.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the mission flow to get stuck in the 'Destroy the Fungor Spawning Mound' mission.
  
• Fixed the achievement trigger for 'Indecisive.'
  
• Fixed collision boxes for the Alien Towers in the Metallic Valley biome.
  
• Fixed the achievement trigger for the 'Treasure Hunter" achievement.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused many sounds to play at once when loading into the game.
  
• Fixed several issues with minimap item visibility.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from flipping pages when using a gamepad.
  
• Fixed multiple issues with the 'interact' button not working properly.
  
• Added missing resources to the global precache system - you should no longer experience stutters when encountering something in the game for the first time
  
• Fixed several issues with Power Well powerup HUD symbol visibility.
  
• All relevant stats for Mech Upgrades, Skills and Weapons should now be visible in the inventory screen tooltip.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused Power Rod Towers and HCM Launchers to reload ammo after loading a save file.
  
• Fixed the damage over time display in the inventory screen - it now displays that it is measured in seonds.
  
• Fixed GUI usability issues on the Orbital Scanner screen.
  
• Fixed multiple crash bugs.
  
• Fixed multiple GUI usability issues.

In last week’s article, we answered one of the most prevalent questions about the Co-Op mode in The Riftbreaker: “Will the campaign be playable in co-op?” Today, we will focus on the second most popular topic in the community: “Why is the game in closed beta? Make it open beta!” We will try to explain to the best of our ability why we chose the closed beta route, how it benefits the development process, and why we can’t transition to open beta just yet. We will also give you a rough estimation of when said transition could happen and when you can expect to receive your beta key.


Our playtests have led us to several conclusions. One of them is: we have too many effects on our screen and we need to fix that,

First of all, let’s clarify why we chose the closed beta model. We had no idea what to expect when we started our testing. We have never played The Riftbreaker with anyone outside of our office. There was a slight chance that everything would go well, but honestly, we were expecting failure. In our experience, nothing ever goes right the first time. Only a handful of people were given access since we were ready to spend the next few weeks diagnosing connectivity issues, game-breaking bugs, and crash reports. In such unknown conditions, it is often the case that more than half of all common problems are caused by one or two bugs. We were prepared for things to bomb and didn’t really need hundreds of reports about the same couple of issues.


When you have friends along doing work, it is easy to fortify your base to the fullest.

To our surprise, none of that happened. Of course, the game had its fair share of issues, and it still does, but nowhere near what we had expected. We instructed our small group of players to focus on functionality first and report all the bugs and broken features. They co-operated and created cohesive lists of issues with as few duplicate error reports as possible. This allowed us to identify the critical problems and assign people to solve them quickly. Having a detailed list of issues and assignments without a vast, nebulous backlog looming over on Discord allowed us to push out patches rapidly. As we mentioned in our previous article - a small team like ours works best when we can focus on a smaller fragment of the game and work toward the ‘big picture.’ In other words, we try not to bite more than we can chew. Working with a small community allows us to set goals and work efficiently.


Big hammerroceros came prepared with personal bodyguards in the form of small hammerroceroses. It didn't help at all.

The closed beta period also allows us to test very specific game elements in a controlled environment. Each update that we release adds a couple of new features or gameplay changes. Our beta testers are informed about the upcoming changes in advance. By staying up to date with what’s happening within the dev team, they know what to expect from each update, which areas they should focus on, and what kind of bug fixes they can expect in the future. Not everyone has the time, and perhaps more importantly, not everyone is willing to put as much time into this project, which is completely fine. Keeping the beta and the testing group under key and lock for a little longer will allow us to continue this iterative development cycle. It has produced good results for us so far.


Playing with friends allows you to get a strong economy and build massive bases in a couple dozen minutes.

Now, let’s discuss what we still need to do to take The Riftbreaker to Open Beta. As you know, we utilize the peer-to-peer connection architecture. This means that people playing together are virtually linked, and all file transfers happen between their PCs, with no servers in the middle. Of course, that is a giant simplification, but the point is that we don’t have any matchmaking services or world servers to maintain. However, that doesn’t mean that the network side is completely maintenance-free. We have a server running 24/7 that acts as a central hub for the server search screen in the game. If the server went down, you could only connect to friends using the Steam friends list or by directly specifying the IP address that you want to connect to. At present, our server is more than capable of running the server search, but we have no idea what the maximum capacity is. If we opened the beta to everyone, we would likely find out the hard way. Before we do so, we need to implement more scalable and robust tools.


To compensate for the stronger economy, attacks get more dangerous as well.

Another disadvantage of open beta is that people will most likely get bored with it too quickly or get the wrong impression. We don’t want people to rush in and try The Riftbreaker in its unfinished state and form the first impression that it is broken and plagued by technical difficulties. We also don’t want you to get burned out by playing the same survival map for a couple of weeks before we add another biome to the list. The beta is not the full version experience. We want to make this distinction very clear.


Some things, however, are still dangerous, even in co-op. Meet the canceroth boss. It's nasty.

Some of you have been asking questions about the rate at which we’re releasing keys to the public. Generally, we try to release between 50 and 100 keys a week. At present, we give priority to those, who signed up earlier and who are present on Discord. Discord is our preferred method of instant communication with the community. It allows us to quickly address concerns and offer workarounds to issues before we can patch them. If you do not have Discord, you’re still eligible for a key. In fact, we will get keys to everyone who signed up for the test. As the game gets better, we will increase the pace at which we send out keys. It is going to take some time, and we are sorry about that. Please believe us when we say that we are not gatekeeping out of spite - we are gatekeeping to maintain an efficient process.


Perhaps we can't see things well yet, but it's still very fun!

As for when the transition from closed to open beta might happen - we don’t really know, but it won’t be this year. It is quite likely that the open beta will last for only a couple of weeks as a final rehearsal before the release. We are looking into several additional options to let you try out the game early to some capacity, though. We will share details about them in advance so that you can schedule around those events. In the meantime, we will do our best to keep you in the loop about everything on the development front.

Remember to sign up here:

Have a great weekend!
EXOR Studios

One of the most common questions you ask in the comments section of our articles is, ‘Will we be able to play the Campaign Mode in Co-Op?’ The short answer is - yes. However, it’s a great question that demands a longer explanation. Most of our posts talk about the technical details of the multiplayer mode or the conclusions we have reached while playtesting the Survival mode. Today, we would like to tell you why we hardly spoke about Campaign Mode, our experience with it, and what kinds of problems we have faced and solved.

The playtest we will discuss today was held quite some time ago, so we have no footage of it. Instead, we will share some shots from today's Metallic Valley playtest. Suffice it to say, it's a bit harsh!

We usually fill these articles with as much knowledge and fresh information as possible. We most often choose the topics we have recently worked on. When working on a single element of the game, like the death sequence we discussed last time, you can focus clearly and speak in more detail than weeks after the fact. Remembering all the small details and reasoning behind our design decisions is much easier. Lately, we have been occupied with implementing improvements based on the feedback we got from the Closed Beta playtest. The playtest allows players to play Survival Mode, which naturally steers our focus in that direction, also when choosing the topic for our articles.


Players now get notified when someone falls on the battlefield. Look at the team rushing to help their downed friend!

We plan to have the entirety of The Riftbreaker playable in Co-Op mode. We chose Survival as the target Beta experience because it is a one-time-limited and self-contained mission. People are much more likely to finish a survival mission within a single session and give us meaningful and actionable feedback. The above does not mean we forgot about the Campaign Mode. On the contrary, we conducted playtests long before the Beta went live. Sometime ago, we gave two of our programmers the task to try and play through the entire Campaign in Co-Op, fixing any issues they found along the way. They played on the internal office network, using their own PCs in the personal server mode. Here’s our best recollection of what happened during that time.


The visibility of deactivated mechs was one of the key issues in the previous builds. To combat this problem, we have attached some additional effects to the wreckage and added a "repulsor" that prevents the creatures from covering the mech.

The scope is the most significant difference between the Campaign and Survival Modes in The Riftbreaker. The Campaign takes place across multiple maps, and players can teleport between them at any point. In Survival, the entire mission takes place on one map only. Unsurprisingly, one of the first problems our boys encountered was traveling between maps. Initially, the game would just crash when trying to change maps. Additionally, only the owner of the server could decide when and where to travel. The programmers quickly fixed the technical side of things and were able to travel without issues. However, we still need to add a way for players to vote for map travel. We will likely do that via a pop-up window, asking whether you would like to travel to any given map and count the votes.

Moving between maps also created many problems when it came to resources - especially ammunition. It is very common that your ammo-producing Armories are located on the HQ map while you are out and about saving the rest of the planet from imminent doom (which you may or may not have brought yourself). When players travel to another map, we take a snapshot of the world state, taking note of how much resources they can produce. Since all players share the resource economy, it was not an issue. However, since ammo is separate for both players, the game got a bit lost when it had to produce ammo remotely for more than one player. Depending on the situation, the game would either refuse to produce ammo altogether or produce it at an insane rate - x^n, where x is the base production value, and n is the number of players. Luckily, that was also an easy fix.


New biome means new boss combinations. Magmoth is resistant to area damage, and Canceroth scoffs at physical. You have to pick your weapons well to fight a creature like this.

Not all problems were quite that easy to figure out. You might already know we always maintain backward compatibility for our saved files. Everything would work fine if you loaded saved games from the 1.0 version in the current public build. However, those saves wouldn’t be usable in the 1.0 version anymore. That turned out to be a problem for us. When our playtesting programmers encountered a bug, they immediately got working on a fix. Then, they had to test if their solution worked by loading a saved file right from before the crash. If everything went well, they could progress further. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always the case. sometimes, their attempts at fixing the initial issues generated new ones… and corrupted their saves as a bonus. Since the entire campaign couldn’t be completed in one session, you can imagine how often they had to salvage their save files and start the entire campaign from the beginning.

Undeterred by all the errors and crashes, our brave heroes pressed on, fighting Galatean bugs and software bugs at the same time. At some point, they stumbled upon one of the exploration missions in a new biome. During those missions, you are not required to build an outpost, so you have no place to respawn. If Mr. Riggs is destroyed, you see a ‘defeat’ screen with the option to reconstruct your mech and start the mission anew. It didn’t work as intended when there was more than one player. If anyone died at any point during that mission, all players would see the ‘game over’ screen, regardless of how many mechs were alive and operational. This actually led us to the first prototype of the revive mechanics. A dying mech would drop a holo beacon that others could interact with to bring them back. This, coupled with the fix for the premature ‘defeat’ screen popping up, solved the issue. The team's problem-solving skills were instrumental in overcoming this and many other challenges, instilling confidence in the game's development.


We also increased stats for some creatures to make them more effective in the boss form. Behold - the Roid Rage Krocoon. Faster, stronger, more angry than ever.

Our team's persistence was evident as they continued to test not only the main Campaign storyline but also the DLCs we had available at that time - Metal Terror and Into the Dark. Both of them had their fair share of issues, but Into the Dark was far worse. For example - the system that clears the objects in front of the camera so that you can see your mech didn’t work at all, which made exploration, combat, and building way more difficult than it should be. Additional problems arose when our playtesters got around to fighting the Anoryx Worm. That fight is the only place in the game where we take away the player’s controls and move the camera elsewhere. Having more than one player and more than one camera was an exception that the game didn’t know how to handle. As a result, the camera would jump from one player to the other without end. Our crew fixed such errors case by case, finally drawing closer and closer to the end of the game.

More bugs awaited as our playtesters came close to the end of each of The Riftbreaker’s storylines. The end of each DLC and the main campaign is marked by a video cutscene that shows you the consequences of your choices. The game logic would hang completely after playing back any of those cutscenes. It was strange because there was an intro cinematic at the beginning of the game, and it worked fine. Digging deeper, we soon figured out that the problem lay not in the cinematic itself but in the operations we carried out after that movie finished playing. After each of our final mission cinematics, we teleport the player to a different map. This also happens in stage transition cinematics in the Crystal Caverns biome. The logic structure of the mission demanded the game to transfer the player after the video finished playing, but the game had no idea which player. It was an unhandled exception that caused the entire thing to stop in its tracks and halt the game’s progress, which could only be fixed by loading a save file.


Our boss creatures will also receive a visual overhaul to make them look more distinct from the rest of the horde. Here's an improved version of the Baxmoth boss.

Most of the issues that we faced were straightforward and easy to fix. However, without playing the game from start to finish, we wouldn’t have been able to catch a large portion of these bugs. Features often work in isolation or a controlled testing environment but fall apart at the seams when tested in real-life scenarios. The fact that we were able to complete the campaign some time ago does not mean we would succeed today. Rest assured that we are working on making onlince coop work in campaign mode. However, each full playthrough of the entire campaign can take weeks when we include the time that is required to fix some problems. Hence, the Survival mode is a much better tool for quick iteration and resolving all of the issues that are common for any type of gameplay.

All of the things we mentioned above can be summarized as follows: we are working on Campaign Mode coop, but it’s a much more difficult process than working on Survival mode and much more difficult to share because of the length of the game Conducting the Closed Beta test in Survival Mode allows us to work through the issues of each biome one by one, but more work will need to be done on top of that. We are planning to run an open beta of the campaign mode online coop experience using the experimental branch of the game. However, it will have to wait until we are sure that it’s mostly functional and that you won’t have to restart your progress due to architectural changes that invalidate your save file. As usual - we don’t want to promise when that is going to happen.


Today, the playtesters were no match for the Lesigian army, lead by Lesigian Omega with healing ray.

That is why, rather than talking about hypotheticals that you won’t be able to verify for months, we prefer to talk about facts that you can get access to - just sign up for our Closed Beta test at:


We hope that this article clarifies the situation and allows you to set your expectations accordingly. If there are any other aspects of the game you would like to learn about, any details that we might have skipped, or if you simply want to tell us to stop picking our noses and release the game already, the comment section is yours!

See you next time!
EXOR Studios

Another week, another portion of updates to the Multiplayer Beta. As always - more keys will be sent out on Monday.

• All players should reconnect automatically when a save file is loaded on the server.
  
• If you are the host of a multiplayer game, the game will now use localhost data loopback that avoids TCP/IP data transmission to reduce performance load and perceived latency.
  
• Changed and improved the weapons, projectiles, effects and stats on Arachnoid, Nurglax, Nerilian, Baxmoth, Gnerot, Mudroner and Magmoth Bosses.
  
• Improved the tile randomization parameters for Volcanic Area Survival mode - you should have more free space now and more lava pools that you can utilize.
  
• Fewer Geothermal Vents will spawn in the starting area of the Volcanic Area Survival missions.
  
• The starting area radius in Volcanic Area is now smaller, which should guarantee Carbonium and Ironium deposits near the spawn location.
  
• Opening the small bioanomalies will no longer cause the nearby creatures to go aggro.
  
• Changed and improved the sounds and effects for the Team Boost buff activation.
  
• Changed the volume sliders from geometric to logarithmic, fixed saving settings.
  
• Changed and improved the Phirian Boss model and skins.
  
• The respawn timer starts blinking faster and faster the closer you are to the reactivation 'deadline'.
  
• Improved mech wreckage visibility by dissolving corpses around the wreck and not allowing enemies to come close to it.
  
• The mech wreckage is now lightly highlighted on the screen to make identification easier.
  
• Added new placeholder voiceover lines for mech deactivation, destruction, and reactivation.
  
• Added new voiceover variants to the Canoptrix Nest objectives.
  
• Added new voiceover lines to Shegret attacks.
  
• Added new voiceover lines for the dynamic boss encounter objectives.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the player's Teleport skill to sometimes send players to the [0,0,0] coordinates.
  
• Fixed problems with players being unable to switch pages of the menu.
  
• Fixed multiple problems with player actions on the Research Screen.
  
• Fixed the Geoscanner sounds being played for all players when anyone activates it.
  
• Fixed the 'Confirm' button on the Customize Controls menu screen.
  
• Fixed a crash in the Building System.
  
• Fixed a crash in the Custom Difficulty Screen.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused some liquid pools to be unusable and invisible on the minimap.
  
• Fixed multiple problems with dropping player input data.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when switching equipped weapon mods.

EXOR Studios

Another day, another portion of updates to the Multiplayer Beta. We will send out more keys on Monday. Stay tuned!

• The Magma Biome is now a part of the Coop Playtest. It's a much more challenging area than the Tropical Zone, so tread carefully. We'd love to hear your feedback in regards to difficulty balancing boss skills in this biome and any bugsthatt you might encounter along the way.
  
• Added phirian attack to magma survival
  
• Added elemental version of Phirian boss entities with attacks and skills (effects skins and meshes still missing)
  
• Reworked Mech deactivation and activation sequence with improved effects and sounds. This is still work in progress, but feedback is very welcome.
  
• Improved canoptrix, granan, morirot and mushbit nest spawn rules
  
• Added new voice lines to the multiple canoptrix nests objective
  
• Creeper: separate, much more agressive creeper for survival objective (probably too agressive)
  
• Fireflies event - triggers solar panels(15% power), brighter light and fireflies, weak wind has been removed from this event
  
• The sound of a Bioanomaly being opened should be heard by all players in the game
  
• Changed effects for multiplayer boost
  
• Changed enemy health modifiers per player above 1 in Coop to:
  
  • normal 0.15
    
  • hard 0.3
    
  • brutal 0.4

• Added a debug pause server option - debug_pause_server 0/1
  
• The game server will now pause gameplay when there are no players present on the server
  
• Multiplayer_game.gui: add option to disallow 'Streaming integration`
  
• Multiplayer_server_list.gui: add `time_elapsed` column
  
• Multiplayer_server_list.gui: show difficulty column
  
• Added server password option
  
• Updated color and outline of loading bar
  
• Fixed loading bar height
  
• EquipmentSlots: added shared icon
  
• EquipmentSlotScreen: fixed sharing mods
  
• Fix ammo display icons for towers
  
• Tower water big: fixed missing ammo icon

• Dead creatures should no longer play the death animation when appearing for the first time on screen
  
• Teleport: reset cooldown if teleport doesnt work
  
• HudVote: fixed removing label (removed spam in log)
  
• Items: fixed lifetime on powerfists
  
• AnnouncementSystem: reduce timeout for mech announcements
  
• Fixed Nerilians coming out of the ground when they were seen for the first time
  
• Geoscanner sounds should play correctly in multiplayer
  
• Fixed global resource storage in outpost building
  
• D-pad gamepad shortcuts for build mode options won't change weapon slots when in build mode
  
• Fixed muzzle particles in mortars

EXOR Studios

Hello Riftbreakers!

This week, we will expand on one of the topics we covered in our last Co-Op Status Update articles. More specifically, we will discuss the mechanics of a player’s avatar’s death in multiplayer. For the past couple of weeks, we have debated over this feature and what we can do to make it more meaningful in the multiplayer context. In the latest build of the Multiplayer Beta, we have introduced meaningful changes to this gameplay aspect. This article will explain what’s changing, our reasoning behind the changes, and the goals we’re trying to reach. Enjoy!


Up until now, "dying" in multiplayer worked exactly like in single-player, with the exception of not losing any weapons (due to technical reasons).

The Riftbreaker was never supposed to be a highly-punishing game. While it is true that the enemy attacks can get overwhelming and the player might have to fight very hard to defend their base, we don’t punish the player for failure. At least - not severely. When a player’s health drops to zero, the mech explodes with a high-damage blast that covers a large radius. After a few seconds, the mech is reconstructed and returned to the HQ at full health. You are free to get back into the fight almost immediately. If you play on normal difficulty and above, you only lose one weapon, which you can later pick up. This is precisely what we were aiming for. We want to keep you engaged and give you the tools to fight back.


This led to players developing a sel-sacrifice strat, as it allowed them to get more DPS.

When we started testing multiplayer, however, some problems began to surface. At the beginning of the survival run, the players are quite underpowered compared to the creatures they fight, especially on the higher difficulty levels. This led some players to the adoption of the ‘self-sacrifice’ strategy, where dying and exploding next to the most powerful creatures in the wave often resulted in a higher DPS output than any of the basic weapons could provide. This strategy, while effective, was not the intended gameplay and led to some imbalance in the multiplayer mode. We didn’t want to take away the death explosion. That would feel like slapping our players on the wrist for not playing the way we intended. We didn’t like that and had to figure out a solution - preferably one that would reward players for staying alive rather than punishing them for dying.


We decided that encouraging players to stay alive, rather than introducing punishments for dying was the way forward.

We put our thinking caps on and got to work. We knew we wanted to center our new ‘death’ mechanics around reviving fallen players and started experimenting. When the player’s health reaches zero, their mech enters a new, temporary “deactivated” state, accompanied by a small explosion. This state serves as a window for other players to come to the rescue, allowing for a more strategic and cooperative gameplay experience. The mech can stay up to 30 seconds in that state. During this time, any player can walk up to the deactivated mech (or teleport to it; your avatar is a permanent rift portal even when you’re down), press “interact,” and pick you up. If you do not want to wait 30 seconds, hold the interact button to speed the timer up. Once the time limit is reached, the mech explodes with the well-known self-destruction blast and gets sent back to the HQ.


We utilized some of the mechanics that we developed for the Multiplayer Deathmath test a couple of months ago. It was a good starting point for the system we currently have in place.

We immediately found a couple of sore spots when testing this solution out. First, when players get to zero HP in The Riftbreaker, they are likely surrounded by an army of aggressive and powerful creatures. Other players had a lot of difficulty reaching their downed comrades. Moreover, the reactivation took a couple of seconds in the first version of this system. During that time, the player helping their friend was essentially defenseless. More often than not, we ended up with two mechs down instead of both players surviving the ordeal.


Reactivating a fallen mech takes only a fraction of a second and grants you temporary invincibility. Thanks to this, you can jump in and out of the battle zone with your buddy in one piece.

The first thing we changed was the reactivation time. Instead of making the player wait a couple of seconds with the “interact” button held, we decided that the process should be almost instant. After all, you’ve already done the hard part—actually getting to your buddy’s wreckage. Additionally, we decided to give a temporary boost to both players involved. After successfully rescuing a teammate, both of you get 5 seconds of invincibility and a 200% damage boost to get out of the danger zone safely. With these changes, we saw that players were more eager to help their fallen friends without fear of risking their own skin.


When you get picked up by your co-op partner, you both get a temporary 200% damage boost. Take revenge on those who wronged you!

Since players can now pick each other up and speed up the destruction timer to use the death explosion more strategically to prevent the abuse of death mechanics, it is the right time to bring back weapon dropping. For the past couple of months, this feature has been disabled in multiplayer for technical reasons. Our tech problems have been solved, and the new death mechanics prompted us to reactivate it in multiplayer once more. The weapon they dropped is visible to all players, but only the owner can pick it up. The lost weapon is gathered automatically when you touch it with your mech and is automatically re-equipped in the slot from which you dropped it.


When your own mech is inactive, you can spectate other players. We are thinking about adding the spectator mode as a standalone option - you would be able to watch others play without joining the session as a player.

The biggest issue we are currently fighting is the mech’s visibility in the deactivated state. We all know what the screen looks like during a battle in The Riftbreaker. It contains bodies, blood, explosions, and other particle effects. At the moment, it is tough to notice the wreckage of your teammate among all the carnage. We are trying to combat this by adding various icons, markers, and effects to distinguish the mech from the surrounding objects. However, at this point, it is still a bit difficult to notice, especially when your focus lies elsewhere.


Even when the mech is inactive, you can still teleport ot its location.

Remember, this is a collaborative process. Since this is the first time we have introduced this set of mechanics to the multiplayer mode, nothing is set in stone at this point. All the timers, buff values, and visuals are subject to change. We're eager to hear your thoughts and suggestions. The more issues we can identify at this early stage of testing, the better the game will be for all players when we finally reach the open beta and, eventually, the public release.

If you prefer it, here’s the TL;DR of the new death and resurrect mechanics in bullet points:

• When a player's HP drops to zero, and no other mechs participate in the game, the character blows up and is respawned in the HQ, just as usual.
  
• When a player's HP drops to zero and other mechs are present, the mech enters a 'disabled' state. The mech can spend up to 30 seconds in that state.
  
• During the 30-second countdown, other players can walk up to the downed mech and 'reactivate' it by pressing interact. The reactivation is almost instant.
  
• After reactivating a player, both mechs receive a "Reactivation Boost" - temporary double damage, health regen (up to 50% HP, more or less), and invulnerability for 5 seconds. These values are subject to change.
  
• The player can opt out of waiting to be reactivated. They can press and hold the spacebar to speed up the 30-second timer. After the timer expires, the mech blows up and reconstructs at the HQ.
  
• If a player is reactivated from the downed state, they don't lose any weapons.
  
• If a player is not reactivated in time, they will drop one equipped weapon.
  
• The dropped weapon is visible to all players but can only be picked up by the player who lost it. Upon pickup, the gun is automatically re-equipped.
  
• Players can enter all menu screens except the inventory screen in the downed state.
  
• When your mech is down, you can spectate other players participating in your session.
  
• The downed mech is marked on the minimap, and players can teleport to it anytime.
  
• These changes have been introduced to discourage the self-sacrifice strategy of dealing with bosses and increase player interaction during gameplay. This mechanic needs more work and careful consideration. Try playing around with it and see how you like it. We are open to making any necessary changes to make it feel good and natural.

And that’s about it! Let us know what you think about the new mechanics we’ve introduced. We’re open to all kinds of feedback. Tell us what other changes you think would make the co-op play a more sociable experience. We await your comments here and on our Discord at https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our beta test by following the link below. More invites go out every week!

See you next time!
EXOR Studios

Another day, another portion of updates to the Multiplayer Beta. We will send out more keys on Monday. Stay tuned!

• Reduced the boss aura skill radiuses from 25-28 metres to 12-15 metres.
  
• The maximum number of players on the server has been limited to 4 in the menu. It is possible to override this with the server_max_players_available_count variable.
  
• Added HP scaling for enemies. The amount of HP on creatures spawned during the attack will now adapt to the number of players on the server. 2 players give the creatures a 50% boost. 3 players - 100%. 4 players - 150%.
  
• Added audio announcements when the player's HP goes down to zero and when a mech explodes.
  
• Volume sliders in the options menu are now logarithmic, not geometric.
  
• Added overcharge symbols to HP and shield bars on the HUD when the players are boosted.
  
• Fixed the Z-order of the player icon on the minimap to make teleporting to a downed player easier.
  
• Fixed some voice announcements not being properly played in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed dynamic music system not changing playlists when it should.
  
• Fixed several crash bugs.
  
• Introduced memory and network optimizations.

Known issues:

• Using a shared weapon will deplete the original owner's ammo.

EXOR Studios

Thank you for your patience and all the testing sessions that you have conducted over the course of our break! We have cooked a new build up for you, introducing some much-needed fixes and changes. We're already working on the next one - we have a couple of cool tricks up our sleeves so stay tuned!

We will send out a new batch of beta keys tomorrow. Please make sure to sign up here:

• We reworked the game's behavior after the player's mech is destroyed. This is the biggest change in this build. Your feedback on this is very welcome.
  
  • When a player's HP drops to zero, and there are no other mechs taking part in the game, the character blows up and is respawned in the HQ, just as usual.
    
  • When a player's HP drops to zero, and there are other mechs present, the mech enters a 'disabled' state. The mech can spend up to 30 seconds in that state.
    
  • During the 30-second countdown, other players can walk up to the downed mech and 'resurrect' it by pressing interact. The resurrection is almost instant.
    
  • After resurrecting a player, both mechs receive a "Revive Boost" - temporary double damage, health regen (up to 50% HP, more or less), and invulnerability for 5 seconds. These values are subject to change.
    
  • The player can opt out of waiting to be resurrected. They can press and hold the spacebar to speed up the 30-second timer. After the timer expires, the mech blows up and resurrects at the HQ.
    
  • If a player is resurrected from the downed state, they don't lose any weapons.
    
  • If a player is not resurrected in time, they will drop one equipped weapon.
    
  • The dropped weapon is visible to all players, but can only be picked up by the player who lost it. The weapon is automatically re-equipped upon pickup.
    
  • In downed state, players can enter all menu screens, except the inventory screen.
    
  • When your mech is down, you can spectate any other players taking part in your session.
    
  • The downed mech is marked on the minimap and players can teleport to it at any time.
    
  • These changes have been introduced to discourage the self-sacrifice strat of dealing with bosses and to increase the amount of player interaction during gameplay. This mechanic needs more work and careful consideration. Try playing around with it and see how you like it. We are open to making any necessary changes to make it feel good and natural.
• Players can now heal each other. Walk up to another player's avatar, press and hold the 'interact' button, and wait. The healing rate is 30HP per seconds at the moment, and it is possible to overcharge the player beyon their current max health.
  
• Added overcharged health and shields icons to let players know they are above the maximum values.
  
• Naturally occurring creatures on the map will now respawn faster after being killed. the respawn speed is increased with the number of players on the server.
  
• Added a loading progress bar with descriptions of loading stages. Thanks to this it will be easier for us to identify any errors during loading. For multiplayer mode, the progress bar is replaced with a 'spinning' bar, letting you know that an operation is in progress.
  
• The localization of the proximity boost has been changed from "Apes together strong" to "Team Boost". Riot in the comments.
  
• Tweaked the "Team Boost" activation parameters. The players still have to be close to each other to start charging the boost, but can now move away from each other significantly further before the connection is broken. We also added a cooldown display.
  
• Added support for enemy damage scaling. It is currently disabled for all difficulty levels, but if you fancy a bigger challenge, you can increase the enemy damage by X percent per player using the 'enemy_damage_factor_per_player x" modifier when starting a new server.
  
• The first wave on all difficulty levels will not be accompanied by a boss creature to give players more time to build up defenses.
  
• Tweaked the Hammerocerros boss and Krocoon boss units to make them more effective in combat.
  
• Added a new boss skill - damage wave. After a melee attack, a small directional shockwave appears, dealing damage to everything in a small arc.
  
• Your Steam avatar should now appear next to your nickname in the main menu screen.
  
• Changed the disconnect message from "You have been kicked from the server" to "The server has been shut down".
  
• Optimized the number of entities that liquid resource volumes generated, reducing their impact on system memory.
  
• Solved multiple issues with the engine's way of handling OGG Vorbis audio files.
  
• Renamed 'cheat_{win,lose}_game` to `debug_{win,lose,end}_game` and moved it to debug.lua.
  
• Fixed an error that could occur when restarting a server.
  
• Fixed the starting position of the cursor when entering the build mode. It will no longer jump to the upper left corner of the screen when entering the build mode for the first time, which was especially painful when using a gamepad.
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen when players were browsing their inventory.
  
• Fixed a problem that caused the depleted shield bar to never disappear from above the player's avatar.
  
• Fixed a problem that prevented the "Don't show again" checkbox in the maim menu intro pop-up message to not work properly.
  
• Fixed a crash in the BuildingService system.
  
• Fixed a crash in gather_resource.lua function.
  
• Fixed an error that prevented users from switching the menu screens using the right and left shoulder buttons on gamepads.
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur in the menus due to custom action mappers.
  
• Fixed a crash in GUI that occurred when interacting with tooltips and slider/scroll by pointer mouse drag.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the player to spawn in without equipment,
  
• We have introduced a ton of memory usage optimizations in the game, which should result in quicker loading times, shorter saving slowdowns and general improvements in performance.
  
• We have also fixed a ton of smaller issues with the game's network code, which should result in greater connection stability.

EXOR Studios

In our Closed Beta Progress Update article last week, we discussed the communication options for The Riftbreaker's multiplayer mode and what improvements we need to make. While we believe that most players will use voice comms during online play, we don’t want to leave anyone without the means to coordinate their efforts with their team. This is why the Co-Op mode of The Riftbreaker will feature both an in-game chat and a “ping wheel.” On the surface, these two might seem like pretty simple tools. However, designing them requires careful consideration and deliberate design. We value your input immensely, and today, we will talk about the design process behind these devices and how your feedback is not just important but integral to what they look like in their final form.


The current, barebones implementation of the chat. It needs a lot of improvements and added features, but it works - for now.

Let’s start with the text chat. Its current implementation is straightforward. Press ‘enter’ to bring up the chat box, type in your message, and press ‘enter’ once more to broadcast your message to all players on the server. The message is accompanied by your nickname so everyone knows who they’re talking to. The message disappears after a couple of seconds. That sounds simple enough. What could go wrong here? As it turns out, quite a lot of things!


The building menu overlapping the chat box is just the tip of the iceberg. If you miss the message, it's gone forever, which isn't good, either.

The first problem is the placement of the chat box. Currently, the messages are displayed right where your building menu would go. If you’re building simultaneously as someone sends a message, it is easy to miss it. Furthermore, we currently have no chat history, so you cannot see what they typed if you miss the message. To solve these problems, we plan to move the chat window to the middle-left portion of the screen, right above the weapons HUD and below the objectives list. This new location ensures that the chat window is always visible, even when you're building, and the chat history feature will allow you to catch up on previous messages by scrolling the window with your mouse wheel if the chat box is open.


Our playtesters suggested moving the chat to the side. This is a mockup of what it could look like. However, the space on the left of the screen is occupied by building information tooltips. The right side of the screen might be a better choice. Luckily, nothing is set in stone at this point, and we will make improvements based on your feedback until the very end.

Now, let’s talk about the ping wheel. It is a well-established feature of online games that allows players to send out short phrases and mark objects of interest with a short series of button presses or gestures. This solution works very well in games ranging from first-person shooters to strategy. We decided to implement it in The Riftbreaker as well since it is a great tool regardless of whether you are on voice comms or not. Allowing players to pinpoint an exact location on the map that requires attention is very valuable in the heat of battle. In our case, when you use the ping wheel, your current location is marked on the minimap, and a message is displayed to all players on the server.


This is a very early mock-up of what the D-pad ping wheel would function like. We scratched that idea thanks to the improvements in our GUI model.

We’re usually reluctant to add new user interface elements. Programming GUI elements has always been difficult in the Schmetterling Engine. Usually, we try to reuse as many parts of the interface as possible, which is not possible here. Additionally, we needed to make the ping wheel functional for both keyboard + mouse players and gamepad users. Our first design utilized the keyboard's up/down/right/left movement buttons or the directional keys on a pad. A player would bring up the ping wheel using a dedicated button. Then, players could send messages with a single or double press of a directional key. This seemed simple enough to implement but felt clunky compared to modern titles with similar features.

Luckily, as we were refactoring most of the game’s engine in preparation for the co-op gameplay tests, we also worked on the GUI. We streamlined the entire user interface framework, making it easier to change existing elements and add new ones without a headache. This allowed us to move away from the clunky button-pressing to the sleek and modern radial menu. For now, it is usable only with the mouse controls, but eventually, we will allow players on gamepads to choose the command they want by just pointing one of the analog sticks in the right direction.


The current implementation of the ping wheel. It is adorned with placeholder 'programmer art' and fancy, wrap-around text that is impossible to read. We will improve on those! Welcome to the 21st century.

As we moved away from the D-pad idea to the analog stick, we needed to introduce changes in the layout. It was necessary since we wanted to fit eight phrases on the wheel instead of four, and we didn’t want players to hit the division line between phrases if they swung the stick in one of the cardinal directions. After shifting the wheel around a couple of degrees, you can send a ping by moving your cursor straight up, for example, without looking. This solution works much better in gameplay but is still far from ideal. Our playtesting has shown that there is only one truly useful phrase - “Assist,” affectionately known as “Gondor calls for aid” at the moment. This decision was made to improve the user experience and make the ping wheel more intuitive and efficient.


Clicking a command sends a message to the server and marks a location on the map. We also implemented some placeholder emotes.

What phrases should we feature on the ping wheel? What sort of quick commands seem the most useful to you? We already have some ideas, and our Beta playtesters have also shared their suggestions. However, in this case, the more information we get, the better the results will be. After all, we’re building these tools for you, so let us know what you need. Your feedback is not just welcome, it's crucial to us. We are open to customizing the wheel with additional phrases, pings, and gestures, but that will come later. First, we want to build a first usable prototype. Then we can improve on that. Leave your suggestions in the comments section of this article and on our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios!

We reserve the right to contact only select participants.


We let more and more people in every week, and we plan only to keep expanding. All people invited to the beta also receive additional keys for their friends, so you always have someone to play with! As beta participants, you can also join our server during streams and take part in the action every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 PM CEST at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios/

See you there!
EXOR Studios

The Closed Beta test of The Riftbreaker Co-Op mode has been running for about a month. Throughout this time, our playtesters devoted hundreds of hours to trying out the brand-new multiplayer mode. It is fair to say that the test is going much better than expected. We were concerned about the game's performance and potential connection issues when tested in real-world conditions. People have access to PCs of varying configurations, and not all internet connections are created equal. These things can lead to a lot of issues. However, most of the feedback we received was about the gameplay itself, which leads us to believe there are fewer tech problems than we expected. This does not mean that everything is working perfectly - of course, it’s not. There is still a lot of work to do. In today’s article, we will summarize the conclusions from the first month of MP testing and the steps we will take in the immediate future.


We're happy with how the beta test has been going - which means we can let more of you play really soon!

Let’s start by talking about the performance of the game. Our playtesters have two options when hosting a new gameplay session:

• Personal (Listen) Server: In this case, one of the player’s PCs serves as the client and the server at the same time. This means all the game calculations are conducted on that player’s PC and then sent to all session participants. This is the most typical usage scenario.
  
• Dedicated Server: A dedicated server must run on a separate PC. The game is not playable on that PC, but all the calculations are carried out in the background. Players connect to the server as usual. The advantage is that no one has to take the cost of running the server AND the game simultaneously. A dedicated server could also have a preferable geographic location, e.g., a server in France could sit halfway between a player in Germany and a player in Spain, cutting the distance that data has to travel in half. The disadvantage is that an additional PC has to be involved.

Because not everyone has access to two powerful PCs, most multiplayer sessions have been run in the Personal (Listen) Server mode. We were worried that the player hosting the session would have a significant disadvantage because the server calculations generate major overhead, but that is not the case. In typical scenarios, when 3 or 4 players play simultaneously, the performance is well within the acceptable limits. The dedicated server is always a better choice, but the difference is not as big as expected. We have successfully played the game even with five players and did not encounter much bigger issues than when playing with two players. However, when this number increases further, more problems become apparent.


We're glad we don't do friendly fire, because walking across another player's line of fire is a common thing!

During one of our developer streams (Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3 PM on our Twitch channel), we encouraged people to join the session we hosted in our office. Feeling adventurous, we set the player limit to nine people and made the server public, allowing anyone with Beta access to join. What resulted was complete madness. At one point, we had nine players from around the world connect to our server in the office, playing a game of survival together. Fifteen minutes in, we had our first fusion power plant running. Half an hour later, the entirety of the map was cleared and built over, which absolutely killed the game's performance. That was a great sign. Even though we don’t officially plan to support play sessions with more than four people, we won’t block that option. If your PC is powerful enough to handle more than four players simultaneously - go for it!


The boss creatures receive a huge HP boost, elemental resistances, and additional abilities. However, some turned out to be a bit more OP than others...

Apart from the ‘officially hosted’ sessions, our beta testers have been playing their game on their own a whole lot. They have given us a ton of helpful feedback regarding gameplay. One of the most significant changes we introduced at the start of the Multiplayer Beta was the addition of boss creatures with each wave. The bosses are based on the largest creatures in the game and their strength depends on the number of players present on the server at the time of their spawn. They receive additional abilities that make them more dangerous and challenging. For example, you can encounter a Hammeroceros with Acid Damage resistance and a Fire Aura that damages everything in a large radius.


...but players found a way to defeat those OP creatures anyway. Still, not what we intended, we will do better!

The addition of bosses completely changes the dynamics of the battles in the game. Thanks to the feedback from our playtesters, we quickly learned that some creature/ability combos are a bit too difficult to deal with, especially in the game's early stages. When players have nothing but an SMG, a blaster, a sword, and a couple of grenades, perhaps sending in a creature that is resistant to most types of damage is not the best idea. This led to the introduction of what we call the 'kamikaze meta, a play pattern where players willingly run into the creature’s grasp and deal damage with the mech’s explosion. This is not a play pattern we want to cultivate. Additionally, dealing with bosses often becomes trivial in the game's later stages. We don’t want it to be a chore, so we will take steps to improve on this aspect of the game.


A Baxmoth can be terrifying on its own. An empowered baxmoth with an acid damage aura AND a Necrodon 'raise dead' ability is nightmare fuel.

We also received a lot of feedback when it comes to economy management. In single-player mode, you have all the knowledge about the factories you’ve built, the number of armories, ammo storages, and the power plants that sustain all those buildings. However, with four players running around the map, it is not the case. Without clear communication, knowing what your base actually needs is difficult. There should be a way of getting all that information with just a glance. This is why we have decided to upgrade the minimap. We will move away from representing the important buildings with colors and grant them icons instead. The common stuff, like energy or material storages, will still be marked with colored squares, but Armories, Comm Hubs, and similar buildings will be marked with individual icons. This way, you can get all that critical information by just looking at the minimap. This feature is crucial for effective team coordination and resource management. We also know that some of you will want the ability to personalize what is displayed on that map - we will give you filtering options to help with that.


Sometimes an attack comes at you from the worst possible side, leaving your base in shambles. It's important to have a team that will allow you to bounce back after that!

While watching others play, we also realized that the game needed features to encourage players to group up and work together. It is excellent that some players can take on the building duties while others go exploring, allowing you to play into your individual strengths. Still, it felt like players only joined in together when fighting an attack wave. We want to encourage you to play together, so we are experimenting with bonuses that activate when mechs are close to each other. At present, the bonus is straightforward - if two mechs stay within a 10-meter radius from one another for a few seconds, they get a temporary +100 bonus to shields and a +10% bonus to movement speed. It naturally boosts players during battles without a lot of thinking about it. We will experiment with this idea and perhaps introduce other buffs to encourage teaming up for other activities.


Here's what the 'Team Boost' proximity bonus looks like. Barebones for now, but we want it to be really meaningful, encouraging players to work together.

We could go on and on about the improvements we plan to make. However, they will take time, and in that time, we will invite more and more of you to test the game with us. In the coming days, we will move away from how we conducted the Beta tests up to this point - a separate, hidden Steam app - to the Steam Playtest feature. It will allow us to stay in touch with you better and open up some exciting growth avenues down the line. Until then - we want to reassure you that everyone who signed up for the test will get the chance to play the Beta before the official release of the Co-Op mode.


You will need to team up with the biggest and baddest creatures we're cooking for you!

We reserve the right to contact only select participants.


Looking forward to meeting you on Galatea 37!
EXOR Studios