Rift is a fantasy MMORPG developed by Trion Worlds, released in 2011. Upon release, it aimed to be better than World of Warcraft – Nowadays, it is dying.
What kind of game is this? In terms of gameplay Rift is strongly reminiscent of WoW, but comes with its own mechanic: The “Rifts”. These exist in the game world and provide players with large world events.
The MMORPG offers a flexible class system with 3 races and 36 so-called souls, allowing players to experience numerous combinations. You play as a chosen hero who must protect the kingdom of Telara.
Additionally, Rift offers classic PvE and PvP content, for which it received regular updates and major expansions for years.
Since 2013, Rift has also been playable on Steam. It has received 74% positive reviews during this time.
No content, just reheated events
What happened to Rift? The MMORPG was released in 2011 with a subscription model but switched to Free2Play a year later. Initially, it failed to convince enough players and therefore offered only an optional subscription.
In 2018, the German publisher gamigo acquired the studio Trion Worlds. Then it became quiet, and players wondered when new content would arrive. The developers then decided to release many smaller patches instead of a few large ones.
This has not worked at all so far. In 2021, there were only events that had already occurred before. For early 2022, gamigo announced an update that fans were still waiting for in December. As “new content” Rift received the old Battle Pass – reheated.
In 2018, a Classic server for Rift was also launched. Initially, it was very popular but apparently had too many issues and was “regrettably” shut down by gamigo in March 2019 without explanation .
Here you can see a trailer for Rift from 2017:
Is Rift facing an imminent death?
Lack of updates and low player counts suggest that Rift may not last much longer. MeinMMO author Alexander Leitsch predicts that the MMORPG Rift will be among those that die in 2023.
According to SteamDB, there were only about 200 players online at peak in the last 24 hours. In addition, there are players using the standalone client of Rift. So in reality, it’s a bit more than 200 players. For a genre that thrives on high player numbers, these figures are still critical.
On the official website and on Steam, gamigo does post news. However, the latest news once again concerned reheated content. There also appear to have been competitions, but new content is not in sight.
What do you think about the MMORPG? Do you believe that gamigo will soon shut down Rift? Or will the game hold on because of its loyal fans? Have you tried it out and collected your own experiences? Feel free to write it to us in the comments here on MeinMMO!
In contrast, these MMORPGs have high player numbers:
The 10 MMORPGs with the most players on Steam in January 2023
