The Riftbreaker News

We have just released a patch for The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta. The full changelog is available below:

[h2]The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta Update, March 19th, 2025 Changelog:[/h2]
[h3]Changes:[/h3]

• Changes have been made to the disassembly system. You should now be able to disassemble multiple items at once.
  
• Changed the "Assist", "Warning", and underground treasure markers from old flags to new 3D meshes for better visibility.
  
• Added placeholder voice lines to several ping menu options.
  
• Poogret Poo now produces much more loot.
  
• The biocache scale now grows with rarity.
  
• Nuclear Power Plants no longer have a uranium upkeep cost.
  
• Players now have access to the menu options when the server is paused.
  

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• Fixed several issues with the Multiplayer Lobby screen and the "Invite a player" functionality. Now, you can invite players from your friends list even if they do not have the game open. If a player accepts an invite when the game is not launched, we will launch the game for them. However, they still won't join your lobby. Inviting players who are already in the game joins them to the correct lobby. We are still working on a fix that will allow you to join with just one click.
  
• Fixed some issues with the Repair Facility materials missing.
  
• Fixed the display of resistance statistics on the Characteristics screen.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Carbonium Factory animation that caused Carbonium samples to get stuck on the screen forever.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when client received the server heartbeat before the world initialization.
  
• Fixed issues with muzzle flash replication between clients.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused players not to receive items when connecting mid-session.
  

EXOR Studios

It is time to unveil one of the major innovations in the free Riftbreaker 2.0 update, which will be available to all our players. During your exploration of Galatea 37, you go on several expeditions taking place in the seven varied biomes of the planet. However, those storylines end with the establishment of your permanent resource outposts. Many of you wanted to keep exploring the biomes - either because you were fond of them or because you needed the resources that those biomes provided. We wanted to give you such an option for a while, and now the time is right. Here’s your first look at The Riftbreaker’s randomized mission generator.

Choose the biome and mission type, roll to find what you want, and ahoy, adventure!

Our newest feature becomes available once you have established a resource outpost in a given biome. Mind you - you have to finish the entire storyline of that leg of the campaign. Bolting out before the objectives are complete or setting up an Outpost building on the scouting mission do not count! Once you’ve “completed” a biome, you can simply go to the Orbital Scanner menu screen and select the ‘Scan’ option. That will take you to a brand-new screen, where you can order your long-range radars to look for a place viable for one of two things: exploration or resource extraction.

Exploration: The Riftbreaker style. You can find groups of bioanomalies in some spots. Perhaps activating them all at once is not the best idea, but we won't tell you how to live your life.

Exploration missions are perfect for those players who want to experience the thrill of venturing into areas densely populated with Galatean wildlife. These places are rich in Bioanomalies, Biocaches, and underground resource deposits, encouraging you to scout the entirety of the mission area. You can find something useful around every corner and test your arsenal in combat situations. Resource extraction missions, on the other hand, take place in areas with more raw resource deposits and fewer natural dangers. They are perfect for setting up additional outposts that will boost your economy to reach the mysterious, long-term endgame goals (which we’ll keep a secret for a bit longer).

Here's the preview of the Scanner screen with all the mission data. The data points are explained below.

Once you choose the biome and the mission type, the scanner will try to find a suitable location for you. When it does, it will present you with a list of basic facts and statistics about that area. You wouldn’t want to make a blind rift jump into the unknown, would you? Here is a short description of the data you will receive from the long-range scans:

• Map Size - informs you about the size of the area of interest in kilometers. Not all maps are square!
  
• Threat Level - This stat tells you about the area's density of the alien population. It is possible to find areas where a specific species dominates over others, making it much more likely to encounter a particular type of creature and making missions much more exciting.
  
• Terrain Type - This will inform you about the area's terrain formations. Flat and open areas are better for setting up outposts. Lakes allow you to take advantage of liquid resources. Canyons give you a tactical advantage when fighting aliens. We have crafted over thirty new map tiles with varied layouts to enhance gameplay’s strategic depth further.
  
• Bioanomalies - The higher the stat, the more Bioanomalies you can expect to find. This is what you’re going to be predominantly interested in when looking for an area for an exploration mission.
  
• Underground Deposits - The number of hidden resource caches you can excavate using the Geoscanner.
• Resource Types - Informs you about the variety and amount of resources you can find in a given area. This will help you decide what factories you can build during your mission.
  

Here's an example layout of a resource-rich map in difficult terrain. Building an outpost here would be challenging, but imagine all those resources ready-to-go in your Storage!

This example, on the other hand, shows what you can find during exploration missions. That's actual water in the Tropical Zone biome! We finally have the technology!

Galatea 37 is an enormous place. There is a virtually infinite number of places you can visit, explore, and use to expand the economy of your proto-colony. If you dislike the area found by the scanner, you are free to perform another scan. This will allow you to find a place that will help you fulfill your goals. However, each area picked up by the scanner is interesting for one reason or another. They contain anomalous objects and sites that should spark your scientific curiosity. For example, a freezing cold area in the middle of a radioactive wasteland. Or a meteor impact site. Or a gravitational anomaly in the middle of nowhere. Each map is worth exploring, but ultimately, the choice is yours!

Sometimes you will find unique formations or sites that will tell a story of their own. Explore everything and look at anything unusual!

The ability to scan for additional planetary missions is one of the biggest innovations in the upcoming Riftbreaker 2.0 update. It will play a huge role in the Extended Story Campaign and allow you to elevate your infrastructure to levels you have never seen before - and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Be on the lookout for more news, where we will reveal even more new mechanics and upgrades to the ones you already know. If you hang out on our Discord at https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios or our streams at https://www.twitch.tv/exorstudios you’ll be among the first to find out what we’re talking about.

See you there!
EXOR Studios

In today’s article, we will address one of the most commonly asked questions about the Co-Op mode in the Riftbreaker. Before you ask, no, it’s not the release date. Yet. We’re sorry about that, but we’re making excellent progress with the beta build. We release hundreds of access keys every week, adding more players to our testing pool. Each session you play and each bug report you send us is crucial in shaping the game. Your feedback brings us closer to the finish line, but we’re not there yet. Today, we want to address your questions about the Campaign Mode in Co-Op, specifically, how we will handle the fact that the Campaign takes place across multiple maps.

A player may start the voting process for travel across biomes at any time. Any. As long as the Orbital Scanner is available. And as long as you're not under attack. And as long as there is no other source of interference. But other than that, any time.

Here's a closer look at the not-yet-finished revamp of the Orbital Scanner screen.

The question we mentioned in the intro of this article is: “Will we be able to be on different maps at the same time during a Campaign run?” Unfortunately, the answer is no. As you know, The Riftbreaker runs on our own engine, The Schmetterling. Over the past few years, the engine has undergone a complete rework, adapting its single-player functionality to handle network play. The goal we set for ourselves was to make sure everything you’ve already seen in the game translates well into the multiplayer context. We expanded the engine with tons of new features and capabilities to meet that goal. However, our resources are limited. Allowing you to play on different maps at the same time would necessitate a total makeover of the campaign structure and the logic behind it. Allowing players to travel to different places independently would essentially turn the game into a small MMO and make you rely on our servers for the game to run. We didn’t want that to happen, so we chose the other option - all players on the same map at all times.

Over 50% of players have to agree to a Rift Jump. You will have to convince others why you want to go somewhere else.

Now, let’s talk about how we are going to handle travelling between maps in the Campaign. We chose to use one of the oldest human inventions still in use today - good old democracy. During a Co-Op Campaign, any player can enter the Orbital Scanner screen and choose a location they would like to visit. However, instead of going there immediately, all players will receive a prompt informing them that one of the players would like to travel to another location. Then, they have one minute to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ The player who started the vote is automatically counted as a ‘Yes.’ This democratic system ensures that every player's voice is heard, and the outcome is decided by the majority. If more than 50% of players participating in the session agree to jump to a different region, the voting ends, and the rift jump commences after a few seconds.

The voting screen slearly states who started the vote and where they want to take you. It also shows you how much time there is left to cast your vote. The popup disappears as soon as you choose one of the options.

We decided to use simple majority because it is a fair and logical way of settling ties for groups of two to four players. Both have to agree to jump in a session with two players. Otherwise, the vote is dismissed. In the case of three players, two of them have to agree to make the jump for the vote to pass. With four players, at least three have to agree. We also considered going with the absolute majority, where all players must vote positively. Still, we ultimately decided against that after a run-in with our in-office trolls, who voted ‘No’ for fun at all times. With this system in place, one vote won’t break the flow of the campaign for everyone.

When all players cast their votes and the result is positive, the game doesn't wait until the timer ends. A save is triggered and off you go!

We are currently conducting a series of parallel Co-Op Campaign tests, with the intent to break the game as much as we can. We purposefully disconnect from the game, connect back, crash on purpose… We’re doing everything possible to ensure the Campaign Mode is an excellent experience for you. As we said earlier, we’re making good progress, and we can see the light at the end of this tunnel, but we’re not quite there yet. We hope to share some good news with you soon - it seems more likely every day. In the meantime, we encourage you to sign up for our Co-Op Beta test and Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios to get the latest updates. Also, remember to join our streams on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3 PM CET at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios - you can get answers to all your questions live!

See you next time!
EXOR Studios

We have just released a patch for The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta, featuring a new biome - Fungal Swamp, and a large suite of other fixes. The full changelog is available below:

[h2]The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta Update, March 4th, 2025 Changelog:[/h2]
[h3]Changes:[/h3]

• Added a new biome to the multiplayer build: Fungal Swamp. You can now play Survival in two new scenarios - Fungal Forest and Fungal Swamp. Good luck.
  
• Reduced the size of the collision box for Walls to prevent the player's projectiles from hitting them when standing on the Heightened Wall Floor.
  
• Shard Gun and Heavy Plasma muzzles have been raised slightly to avoid collision issues.
  
• Crafted Mech Upgrades will only receive the stats listed on the crafting screen. Upgrades you find as loot are able to receive additional bonuses.
  
• Bonuses granted by mech upgrade modules are now additive, not multiplicative. Previously, if you equipped a 10% resistance bonus upgrade, and then another one, you would get 11% as a result. Now, the bonuses will add up to 20%, as one would expect.
  
• Changed the meshes for Gnerot, Krocoon, Fungor and Necrodon Omega strains to the new ones.
  
• Changed the "Host Game" button localization to "Host/Load Game" to let players know they can actually load the game via the lobby screen.
  
• Crafted weapons are now marked as crafted in the inventory.
  
• Added a new background to the lobby screen.
  
• Added some temporary emotes and animations to the ping wheel - taunt, greeting, dance, cheer.
  
• Changed the lights in Biocaches - the radius is larger, the intensity lower, and the light pillar more visible.
  
• Changed the effective radius for the Shockwave Tower from 13 to 18.
  
• Updated the Tropical Zone loading screen to feature the updated Hammerocerros models.
  
• Added more loot to Canceroth.
  
• Added healthbars to all Canceroth central cells.
  

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

• Fixed several gamepad navigation issues.
  
• Fixed issues with damage skins for several cryo Omega creatures.
  
• Fixed a crash in the Inventory System.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused Ferdonite to use a wrong color icon.
  
• Reduced the instance limit of the Shotgun bullet hit sound to prevent it from getting too loud.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented preview sounds from playing while changing volume sliders in the Audio Options menu.
  
• Fixed several stability issues related to DX12 raytracing.
  
• Fixed some animation glitches while attacking with the Sword.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused most projectiles to be invisible.
  
• Fixed crashes that occurred when connecting to the server and restarting the game.
  
• Multiple optimizations, performance improvements and networking enhancements.
  

EXOR Studios

We have just released a small patch aimed to increase the game's stability on systems equipped with Nvidia RTX GPUs.

Over the past weeks, we have been made aware of an issue that causes our game to crash when raytracing options are enabled. Further investigation revealed that the increased frequency of these crashes coincided with the release of new Nvidia GPU drivers. Unfortunately, the crashes happened at random intervals and were not present on all GPU/driver combinations, which made searching for the cause of this bug especially tricky.

Today's patch fixes one of the possible issues that caused the game to crash with raytracing options enabled. However, this is not the final fix. We are still working on a comprehensive solution that will solve this issue altogether.

If you still experience crashing after this patch, please try playing with raytracing options disabled. While not a perfect solution, this will allow you to continue playing uninterrupted. We will release another patch as soon as we can.

We sincerely apologize for this issue.

EXOR Studios