Rift (PC) Review

The MMO market is a highly competitive one, more so than for many other genres. One key difference is that players will usually only play one MMORPG at a time. This is often due to a subscription fee and the fact that staying on the edge of an MMORPG is a huge time investment that generally leaves the player little time to play other games. This limits the market and makes it difficult to have more than a few great-selling titles at a time, and therefore many subscription-based MMORPGs have been forced to become free-to-play or fade away. Rift picked the former, and did so admirably.

Instead of going the cynical route of making payment almost a necessity to have any progress at all, Trion has shown great taste by leaving most paid features either cosmetic (such as more colours to dye the well-made clothes in the very well-developed wardrobe, or new fashionable hair-cuts), or quality of life improvements, such as faster mounts and more bag space. This leaves a free-to-play experience that never cheats the player, but still gives reasons to pay for more.

That's enough about the history of Rift and its payment syste, though. What makes it worth playing over the dozen of alternatives is the customisation that is offered to make a character truly feel unique and special. Many modern MMORPGs have paths for character development that are set in stone, with very few ways to purposefully affect how the character will play. Rift, however, gives much more freedom than many similar games.

When first making a character, there is a choice in between standard archetypes, such as Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Cleric, and the latest addition of Primalist. This is, however, where the pre-rendering stops and the creativity begins. Each of these "classes" has several souls that can be mixed to forge creative, interesting, and personal builds that a crafty player can use to fit exactly their preferred playstyle, and the options are seemingly endless. Want to be a necromancer who delves into warlock skills to further enhance the DoTing? Sure! Want to be an assassin with the support abilities of a bard? That is possible!

It is possible to pick up to three souls for the class to make it personal, which is done through a sort of skilltree that will be familiar to most who have played a MMORPG. When levelling up, points are given that can be spent in any of the three active skill trees, so it is possible to put most points into a primary soul while using the other souls to specialise, or to level them equally and get a better mix of all three styles.

The options for personalising in Rift does not end there, though. Rift also boasts one of the best housing systems found in a MMORPG, one which allows players to collect keys to different houses that can be decorated with a seemingly infinite variety of objects that are obtainable throughout the world. It is fun, and offers plenty of possibility to add even more of a personal touch.

While highly customisable, there needs to be more in a game than that; there needs to be life and dungeons to explore. Sadly, this is where Rift, due to its free-to-play nature, is lacking. New content is made slower than players conquer it, with too large a gap between content patches. Sadly, this means that people will play this for a short while once a patch lands, and then leave until the next big patch arrives. What marks a successful MMORPG is the ability to deliver content that keeps the players hooked, and an inability to do so makes many giants fall while those producing plenty of high quality content survive. However, the travel to the endgame is better than in many MMORPGs, and is very enjoyable as a free to play title, so it is difficult to not recommend to anyone who likes the World of Warcraft-styled MMORPGs.