The Riftbreaker News

We have just published a minor update for The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta. It includes many changes and bugfixes listed below. We also sent out a MASSIVE Playtest Access wave, courtesy of Paweł's generosity, and not at all a bug with page refresh which caused us to release twice as many as we initially intended. We are calm.

[h3]The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta Update, May 15th 2025[/h3]
[h2]Changes:[/h2]

• Gathering tools now include loot drones as a base parameter.
  
• Reworked the main menu flow and added a new “What’s New” section.
  
• Added password and text input popup templates with support messages.
  
• Added “Follow Us” toast to the main menu.
  
• Multiplayer saves are now filtered correctly to avoid mixing with single-player files.
  
• Added detailed warnings for version/content mismatches when joining games.
  
• Server now handles kick/ban events more reliably.
  
• Improved visual fidelity of alien comet decals and boss tornado skills.
  

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

• Fixed issues with flickering shadows.
  
• Temporarily disabled raytracing to filter out crash reports caused by raytracing issues.
  
• Fixed prediction bugs and deadlocks in burst-fire weapons.
  
• Fixed melee weapon stuns not triggering properly on clients.
  
• Added logic to prevent simultaneous use of the detector and melee weapons.
  
• Fixed softlocks and improved safety logic in various weapon systems.
  
• Improved handling of controller input changes.
  
• Fixed rare bugs in player migration when loading saves from another account.
  
• Cleaned up empty tooltips and removed outdated GUI shortcuts.
  
• Refined gamepad navigation across the survival screen and menus.
  
• Fixed incorrect gamepad shortcut behavior in the equipment screen.
  
• Fixed screen alignment and selection node issues.
  
• Fixed portal activation issues in multiplayer games.
  
• Improved entity replication logic and reduced desync potential.
  
• Added safeguards for network entity creation and removal during packet loss.
  
• Marked sensitive multiplayer data as non-persistent.
  
• Improved delta acknowledgement timing for smoother server operation.
  
• Fixed jittering of dead units in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed mech spectator camera orientation.
  
• Fixed creature health scaling based on player count and difficulty level.
  
• Added internal helper for unexpected async results.
  
• Fixed rare crash in the research tree if a node was missing.
  
• Multiple backend tweaks, bugfixes, and QoL cleanups.
  

EXOR Studios

At the end of the previous month, we officially sent out all the remaining beta invitations to users who signed up via our Google Form. Thank you for being a part of this test! We’d also like to remind you that email isn’t perfect—some invites might have been blocked or lost altogether. If you haven’t received a message with your beta keys, feel free to contact Void at [email protected]. If you were on the original list, we’ll sort it out for you.

We took this opportunity to update our loading screen artworks. Here's the new "unoccupied" Desert art.

[h2]Now, let’s move on to this week’s exciting updates![/h2]

Earlier this week, we released an update to the Multiplayer Playtest version that includes the Radioactive Desert biome Survival mission. This is a major milestone for the beta test, as all the biomes you know from the single-player modes are now available to play in co-op. It’s no accident that we’re releasing this biome last. Thanks to your help, over the past few months of testing, we’ve managed to find and fix hundreds—if not thousands—of bugs and errors that plagued all the other biomes. The Radioactive Desert is, by comparison, the least complicated one, so we expect smooth sailing with this biome. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, though—we’re still monitoring your feedback and implementing fixes daily. Keep the reports coming!

Visit the Store Page and click the button to sign up for access!

[h2]New Invite Wave – and You Can Invite a Friend![/h2]

We also have good news for those who signed up for the playtest via our Steam Store Page. We’ve sent out the first wave of invitations and will keep expanding the player pool over the coming weeks. Thanks to an experimental Steam Playtest feature, you can now invite one of your Steam friends to join the test! They’ll gain permanent access—and so will the person they invite. Over time, we’ll expand the number of invitations available to each player. Thanks to this system, it only takes one person in your group to get access—and from there, everyone can join in. Each invited player can bring in another friend, so it’s easy to assemble a full squad and dive into co-op together. (One small caveat: you have to be friends for at least 30 days before you can send out invites to each other!)

Once you get access to the playtest, you will get notified about this by Steam. Then, you can invite others via the Library Page, just like in the example above. Image courtesy of Valve.

And this is what your friend will see. Image by Valve.

[h2]Endgame Story and Voiceovers[/h2]

Alongside major technical improvements, we’re also making huge progress in terms of game content and design. It’s an exciting time for us—we’re finally filling the game with high-quality assets and seeing it in its full glory after months of placeholder content. This week, we finalized the full list of voice lines for Ashley and Mr. Riggs that will carry the story of the Endgame expansion in Campaign Mode. It looks like the free Expanded Story Campaign will enrich the main campaign with almost as much content as the original main storyline. It might sound like a lot, but these lines bring the expansion’s long-term goals into focus and lead you to the game’s “true” ending. And since we’re talking about voice lines—some of you were concerned that the beta version contained AI-generated dialogue. We use those only for prototyping. Rest assured—these placeholder lines are just a tool. Only the real voices of Francesca Meaux and Ryan Laughton will appear in the final version.

Here's the loading screen you'll see after you have constructed an outpost in the Desert.

[h2]Stay Connected![/h2]

That’s a wrap on this week’s news! If you have any questions about The Riftbreaker or EXOR Studios, feel free to ask in the comments or join the conversation on our Discord: https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios. You can also catch us live on Twitch—we stream every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 PM CEST at https://www.twitch.tv/exorstudios.

See you there!
EXOR Studios

We have just published a minor update for The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta, which includes the final survival Mode mission in the Radioactive Desert biome! All biomes are playable now - we're looking forward to hear what you think! Full changelog below.

[h3]The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta Update, May 8th 2025[/h3]

• The Desert Biome has been added to the playtest version. All biomes are now Survival playable.
  
• Added a server password check option to the Game Server Lobby.
  
• The game will now remember authenticated sessions, so you won’t need to re-enter passwords after map changes.
  
• Added a WeatherEntityLocalDamageAccumulator to fix the earthquake event lag spike.
  
• Fixed an issue where players couldn’t start properly after joining the game.
  
• Fixed a bug causing double chainsaw attacks from the mech.
  
• Added internal checks to prevent crashes related to melee weapon switching.
  
• Improved co-op synchronization: items from team entities are now correctly transferred to all players.
  
• Fixed a rare crash related to weapon detection in the Lua scripting system.
  
• Fixed visibility of the ‘Back’ button on the Statistics screen.
  
• Improved hitboxes for control buttons in the Customize Controls screen.
  
• Minor visual fixes and asset updates throughout the game.
  
• Added blueprint-level assertions in the Pause System for better debugging.
  
• Fixed model usage bugs in the Crafting Screen.
  
• Fixed multiple crash bugs and other issues.
  

EXOR Studios

We have just published a minor update for The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta, which includes fixes for the most common crashes you have been reporting. This build does not contain any other contant changes.

EXOR Studios

We’ve got fantastic news to share today – our Closed Co-Op Beta is going strong, and we’re about to ramp things up! Thanks to your feedback, our network architecture and Survival Mode gameplay are shaping up nicely. We're now ready to speed up the invitation process and welcome even more of you into the action. In this post, we’ll walk you through what’s happening next and why we’re still keeping things closed – for now. Let’s dive in!



[h3]Everyone gets in![/h3]

Over 12,000 players signed up for the Closed Beta through Google Forms – and we can’t thank you enough for that. If you’re one of them and haven’t received your key yet – don’t worry. You’ll get your invite by the end of April.

Once that’s done, we’ll close the form and switch over to Steam Playtest sign-ups. That doesn’t mean the Beta is over – quite the opposite! You’ll be able to join the test through our Steam Store Page, and the first wave of Steam invitations will go out right after the first weekend of May. After that, we’ll keep rolling out keys regularly every couple of days.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/780310/The_Riftbreaker/

Click 'Request Access' right below the demo option on out Steam Store page to sign up for Beta.



[h3]Why not just go Open Beta already?[/h3]

We hear you – and we get the excitement! But there are a couple of good reasons we’re still keeping it invite-only for now:

• The Closed Beta doesn’t yet reflect the final quality of online co-op. Bugs are expected, and sometimes new builds cause more issues than they solve. It’s all part of the process – and we want to make sure that only players who are OK with that kind of chaos are diving in.
  
• By limiting access, we can respond to feedback faster. Every report matters, and we don’t want anything slipping through the cracks. A smaller test group lets us iterate in a more controlled way.
  

[h3]What’s next?[/h3]

If all goes well, we’re planning to launch an Open Beta in early Summer. No promises – but that’s our current goal.

This next phase will focus on Campaign Mode Co-Op, and we’ll make it available through the experimental branch of The Riftbreaker on Steam. That will be our big stress test before calling the update ready for prime time.



[h3]Thanks for being here[/h3]

We’ve come a long way – and it’s been quite the journey.

We started working on online co-op back in 2021, rewriting huge chunks of our engine to support a custom-built network architecture from the ground up. It was a massive challenge, but we knew it was worth it.

Our journey is well-documented in our "Co-Op when" articles – you can find them all here.

Thanks to your support, we ran our first tiny PVP connectivity test in August 2023. That laid the groundwork for the full-scale Survival Mode Co-Op Beta that began a year later – and we’re only gaining momentum from here.

Your feedback, patience, and enthusiasm have made this progress possible. We’re beyond grateful.



We’re just getting started – and we can’t wait to show you what’s next.

EXOR Studios