Adam Woolridge of Rust developer Facepunch Studios has announced the team’s next title, Riftlight. It’s an arcade shooter with ”other light-RPG stuff like character levels, abilities and talent trees”.
Woolridge has apparently been working on the concept behind the game for some time, and says he wants it to be ”colourful and different”.
You’ll zoom around in various colourful space zones, blasting alien organisms and looting new gear. As you level up in one of three unique classes (rogue, caster or melee) you’ll choose new skills and talents. There’s also going to be a strong co-op focus and lots of randomisation; levels, missions and loot will be different every time you play.
”It’s an arcade shooter that can be played with a gamepad or mouse and keyboard,” explains Woolridge. ”It has loot and other light-RPG stuff like character levels, abilities and talent trees. I want it to be colourful and different, not just screens and screens of black space and white stars (although it is, at the moment!) You’re not gonna need a dictionary on standby to look up space-words or a Maths degree just to understand which gun to equip on your ship. The one that does the most damage is the best gun, and it’ll just say so.”
The three classes all have their own quirks; the ranger is your traditional shooty/blasty craft, the caster is a more lightly armoured ship focusing on spells and AOE attacks, and the melee class… doesn’t shoot at all. Instead it pulls stuff into its range and slices it up with an energy sword.
Riftlight is a way out yet, with plenty of work still to be done. You can check out early gameplay footage on Woolridge’s dev blog.
