ATTN: Weavers,
RIFTSTORM is now available in Steam Early Access.
After nearly five years in development and three massive public playtests, this marks the beginning of the game we will be building alongside all of you: a co-op PvE action game where squads of Weavers deploy into Mythic Protocol operations, fight escalating threats, collect weapons and Lythograms, push their luck, and extract before the mission goes bad.
At launch, you can deploy with five playable Weavers:
Rook, our adaptable Protocol generalist.
Starling, a sustained-fire Vanguard weapons specialist.
Hertz, a Roseguard frontline disruptor built to hold enemy attention.
Botsy, a Containment technician who turns the battlefield into a problem for the enemy.
Caracal, an Interregnum marksman supported by his Kestrel drone.
The Early Access launch build includes our onboarding campaign, the opening PADDOCK Contingency missions, online solo and three-player co-op, a starting arsenal of around 30 weapons, several dozen Lythogram power-ups, two primary Mythic species to combat, and the first version of our Periapt progression system.
This launch is a new starting point for the team.
Early Access means that our systems will change and evolve over time. Major updates may require progression wipes, particularly when you guys inevitably find ways to break our game. We will be watching feedback, gameplay data, bug reports, and looking for the very specific kinds of chaos that only happen once thousands of players get their hands on a systemic game.
Our immediate priorities will be stability, game-breaking bugs, community-requested fixes, and making sure the launch experience gives us a strong foundation to build upon.
Beyond that, we have already set our sights on what comes next.
In a world of myth, doctrine, and protocols, operatives live and die by the contingencies that bind them to their duty.
We have shaped RIFTSTORM's Early Access roadmap across four thematic Contingencies: PADDOCK, BLACKSITE, GREYLINE, and STORMSURGE.
These Contingencies chart our intended journey through Early Access, from establishing the foundations of RIFTSTORM to expanding its missions, environments, Weavers, Mythic threats, and larger world.
The roadmap represents our current direction, not an immutable production schedule. Features, timing, and priorities may change as we respond to player feedback, balance needs, and the realities of development.
As we open the floodgates to RIFTSTORM, new players will be thrust into a launch campaign designed to induct them into the Mythic Protocol.
Set against the backdrop of a base-wide containment breach, PADDOCK is about establishing the baseline (pun not intended) experience for RIFTSTORM: its Weavers, weapons, Lythograms, progression systems, mission structure, and extraction-lite loop.
Following launch, we plan to introduce two additional Weavers as soon as we are ready, expand the available arsenal, and deliver balance changes and quality-of-life improvements as we carefully refine the game systems for the larger Contingencies ahead.
BLACKSITE will take players deeper into the mysteries of the Mythic Protocol itself and the many secrets buried within its facilities.
With new Weavers, new Mythic threats, and our first planned raid experience, BLACKSITE is intended to push deeper into the Protocol while testing the limits of our expanding combat systems.
GREYLINE steps out of the shadows and into the larger world, reinforcing the fantasy of a civilization living under Mythic threat.
New environments and Weavers will be joined by planned systemic overhauls for older or unbalanced Mythic species players may have previously encountered only in smaller glimpses. The mythic encounters moves closer to the surface, secrecy begins to fray, and containment becomes increasingly difficult to maintain around the world.
By this point, we hope to have found greater balance within RIFTSTORM's compounding systems. The same cannot be said for the rifts themselves.
STORMSURGE will explore escalating Mythic and rift-borne contamination around the world, introducing strange Mythic hybrids, transformed environments, and increasingly difficult Threat levels.
It will begin the final countdown toward the inevitable landfall of the RIFTSTORM itself.
Throughout Early Access, this roadmap will be shaped by the game players actually play.
If a Weaver becomes too dominant, we will look at it. Some of our playtesters already know that we are not above killing (removing temporarily) a Weaver or two when they are broken. If a weapon family is ignored, we will ask why. If a Lythogram combination turns standard combat into an incident the Protocol needs to investigate, we will document it, tune it, and probably hear no end of it from you guys.
Our goal is not simply to add more things over time. Every new Weaver, weapon, enemy, and Lythogram needs a systemic reason to exist within RIFTSTORM's chaotic framework.
We cannot stress how much we have learned from three years of playtesting with all of you. The biggest lesson has remained remarkably consistent:
We build it, you break it, and RIFTSTORM becomes better because of it. Always.
We truly hope that together we can shape RIFTSTORM into the co-op power fantasy we can all sink hundreds of hours into.
Thank you for joining us at the start.
Welcome to the Mythic Protocol.