Rift

With Rift 4.2 hitting live servers today, we caught up Trion Worlds Rift Executive Director - Chris "Archonix" Junior and Senior Design Director - Simon "Dead Simon" Ffinch to chat about the game-changing update and where Rift goes from here. Read on to find out all the details.

Rift will be getting a hefty update on July 19th with the arrival of the Celestial Storm. It will feature a new zone complete with quests, the Tartaric Depths in normal mode, new raid rifts, a new instant adventure, new creatures and four new Primalist Souls. If that's not enough to get your attention, perhaps the news that the Prophecy of Ahnket expansion is now free and will be forever.

Trion Worlds has changed the name of Rift 4.0, aka Starfall Prophecy, to Prophecy of Ahnket. The change came about after the company learned of a children's charity called the Starfall Education Foundation and renamed the expansion to avoid confusion. To celebrate the new moniker, Trion is giving Prophecy of Ahnket away for free simply for logging in between May 10th and May 14th.

Trion Worlds and Razer have announced a partnership to give players incentive to play Rift, Trove, Atlas Reactor, ArcheAge, Devilian or Defiance in order to earn zSilver. This special currency can be earned by launching the games from Razer Cortex which can then be used to purchase Razer products and various discounts.

Players at the top end of Rift have a ton of new content to experience thanks to the deployment of the Forged in Flame update. The patch includes the Tantraric Depths 10-player raid for level 70 players, Eternal Items obtained through a level 70 quest series and the Rise of the Phoenix quest as well as the reworked level 70 Intrepid Gyel Fortress.

The latest Rift producer's letter has been published on the official site. The discussion begins with a recitation of some of the best things that have happened to the game in the past re months including technical improvements. The letter then goes on to dissect some of the challenges encountered with v4.0, how those challenges will be met and what the future holds for Trion's MMO.

The Rift site has been updated with a short note to let players know that update 4.1: Forged in Flame has been delayed until March 29th. Developers cited the need to "invest a few more weeks" into both internal and PTS testing. As a result, Carnival of the Ascended is also delayed until after the deployment of 4.1, hopefully, March 30th.

The Rift site has been updated with a forward look at the next Starfall Prophecy update coming on March 1st. Called Forged in Flame, the 4.1 update will feature a new 10-player raid called the Tartartic Depths and with new Eternal weapons that can be improved via a questline that sends players off to close rifts, complete jumping puzzles and defeating a variety of enemies. These Eternal weapons will be considered "best in slot".

Rift has been updated with a new hotfix patch that brings some much-anticipated content into the game: Fortress Sieges, Looking for Raid and the individual loot system. Fortress Sieges allows individual players or groups up to raid size to take on Xarth's Skull zone. Individuals assist by working along the exterior walls taking on vulnerable targets. Small groups take on enemies further into the fortress while large raid groups can tackle capturing siege weaponry.

Trion Worlds is inviting all Rift players to the game's annual Fae Yule celebration that comes with themed Instant Adventures and a Warfront as well as new items and features to earn. The event is currently live and will run through January 11, 2017.

For those who love puzzles, the new Rift dungeon, Tok's Proving Grounds, may provide just the challenge they're looking for. The dungeon is entirely made up of puzzles including just finding it to begin with: "Search for a Platonic solid somewhere in the village of Alittu". Riiiiiight...

Rift's newest expansion, Starfall Prophecy, is finally here! Does this new expansion take Rift to new heights? Or is it a dud?

Rift’s latest expansion, Starfall Prophecy, is the first time I find myself having run with Trion’s flagship game since around the time of Storm Legion. That said, this expansion’s had its share of bumps and some design choices that seem a bit antiquated. Read on for our review in progress while we work towards a final scored review.

This week on Game On, Chris and Bill dive deep into the world of evil underlings with a discussion of Obsidian's new RPG, Tyranny. Later, they talk about ArtCraft's new fundraising effort that makes supporters actual investors, Guild Wars 2's latest icy update, and how Starfall Prophecy is adding to the world of RIFT. Should you buy it now?

Game Director for Rift, Chris Junior, recently took to the official Rift forums to announce some compensation initiatives for players currently being effected by the downtimes and crashing experienced with the 64-Bit client.