Games worth discovering

For now, Riftstorm is a barebones shooter that doesn’t stand out from the pack

3K View2023-11-14

RIFTSTORM

9.0

Sci-fiAction RoguelikeActionProcedural GenerationRoguelikeRPGPvEMultiplayer

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SHOULD I PLAY RIFTSTORM?

You can safely skip Riftstorm for the time being. As it enters early access, this twin-stick shooter is extremely light on content, but beyond that, it’s not doing anything particularly interesting. You’ll head out on missions through bland, procedurally generated levels in which the object is to kill everything in each room before proceeding to the next, and possibly finding some power-ups along the way. The early build I played included four total missions, and while I’m sure that number will increase in time, there’s not much that sets the ones we already have apart from each other.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve played about an hour and a half of Riftstorm, which was more than enough to see everything in the current build. There are four levels, one character, and a headquarters wardroom of sorts where I could pick missions and set up my loadout. Once I met the power requirements, I was free to re-run any of the levels. Initially I could only access two, but it didn’t take me long to unlock the ‘challenge tower’ and ‘final showdown’ encounters on the map.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT RIFTSTORM?

• Bite-sized action. Riftstorm isn’t a complex game, but the basic run-and-gun shooting is fun and tightly executed. I ran around using the WASD keys while aiming and firing with my mouse, and occasionally using the spacebar to trigger a dodge-roll style dash that allowed me to pass through enemy attacks and environmental hazards without being damaged. Beyond that, I was able to unlock a couple special abilities, including a stun grenade that sent out damaging waves in an area of effect. It’s a game about running around and shooting things while dodging enemy bullets and explosions, and sometimes simple is just what the doctor ordered!

• Cool art style. Riftstorm uses a highly stylized cyberpunk visual style, and while I didn’t think it was flashy or particularly unique, it looks fresh and clear, and it made the action on screen easy to read.

• Promising background story. Riftstorm’s opening cinematic hints at a far-reaching conspiracy that goes back hundreds or even thousands of years, questioning our basic understanding of the world and human history. I was keen to see where it was heading, but unfortunately there’s very little of it to see just yet.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT IN RIFTSTORM?

• Very little to do right now. The four levels included in the initial build I tested weren’t enough to keep me occupied very long, and even though they changed a bit each time I ran them, there wasn’t really any meaningful difference in any of my runs.

• Dull, generic weapons. While the enemies in Riftstorm are mutant zombies of some kind, the weapons I found were all completely pedestrian: the same assault rifles, pistols, PDWs, shotguns, and sniper rifles I’ve seen a thousand times before. Every time I came back from a successful run, I’d crack open my artifacts to find another batch of the same weapons, just with slightly better stats and rarities.

• Skills are pretty boring, too. I didn’t find any standout abilities during my brief time with Riftstorm. During each run, I periodically would get to choose from three potential upgrades, and these tended to be things like boosts to reload speed, bullets that bounced off surfaces or had armor penetration, or an explosion set off by my dash ability. These were useful, sure, but there wasn’t anything memorable or surprising in any of my runs.