34 | New Scientist | 20 November 2021
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The games column
WHEN writing this column,
I try to remember that many
of New Scientist’s readers don’t
play video games. With that in
mind, I try to pick titles that have
something to say about science
or technology but don’t require
knowledge of gamer terminology.
This month, I have failed, but stick
with me while I tell you about one
of the most entertaining games
I have played this year.
The Riftbreaker casts you as
Ashley Nowak, an explorer sent on
a one-way trip to the distant planet
of Galatea 37. Really, you play as
her hulking mech suit, dubbed
Mr Riggs. The story is paper-thin –
there is a brief mention of Earth
being uninhabitable after the
“Yellowstone event”, presumably
a reference to the potentially
apocalyptic supervolcano in
Wyoming. Your job is to survey
the planet, construct a “rift gate”
to enable teleportation back to
Earth and to prepare Galatea 37
for colonisation.
It all starts fairly simply, as you
set up wind turbines and solar
panels to power automated mines
and gather resources. But thenyou come under attack from the
local animals – overwhelming
hordes of reptilian beasties. Mr
Riggs is bristling with weapons
to defend yourself. You can also
set up walls and turrets to build
a defensible base. Then there are
the natural disasters, such as
earthquakes and meteor strikes,
and bad weather that interferes
with your power generation.This loop – gather resources,
improve your weapons and
your base and defend yourself –
propels the entire game, deftly
blending two genres known
as real-time strategy (RTS) and
twin-stick shooters. The former
usually involves building up
an army and smashing it into
another until one of you is
wiped off the map. The latter is
about controlling a character and
ducking out of the way of enemiesMine, build, kill some aliens Strategy, supply chain challenges and the perils
of colonising an inhospitable planet add up to make The Riftbreaker one of the
most fun games of the year so far, says Jacob Aron“ Before you know it,
you are chasing supply
bottlenecks while
occasionally pausing
to mow down aliens”as you try to take them down.
Combining these genres
is a pretty weird idea, but
The Riftbreaker really makes it
work, as your base and Mr Riggs
work in tandem to hold back the
aliens. What I particularly like
about The Riftbreaker is that,
unlike mission-based RTS games
such as genre classics StarCraft
or Command & Conquer, your
base persists throughout the
entire game, meaning it grows
into a sprawling behemoth.
I occasionally found myself
stumbling across sections that
I had built hours earlier and had
completely forgotten about.
As you grow your base, the
game introduces another concept
that regular readers will know I am
a big fan of: supply chains. While
your initial buildings are made of
easily available carbon and iron
(or “carbonium” and “ironium”
as the game strangely calls them),
building the rift gate requires rarer
materials such as uranium and
cobalt that can only be found by
visiting other areas of Galatea 37
and setting up outposts, which
in turn need supplying. Before
you know it, you are chasing the
bottlenecks in your system while
occasionally pausing to mow down
aliens. It is as if Ellen Ripley got a
side gig as a logistics manager.
While playing, I did wonder
if I should feel bad about strip-
mining an entire planet. This
point is touched on with a few
lines of dialogue, and while you
can choose to use only solar, wind,
biomass or geothermal power
throughout the game and receive
a “going green” achievement
for doing so, burning your way
through the biosphere is too
much fun to miss. ❚EX
ORSTUDIOSIn The Riftbreaker, you
scout an alien world and
prepare it for colonisationGame
The Riftbreaker
Exor Studios
PC, PlayStation 4 and 5,
Xbox One and Series X/SJacob also
recommends...
Games
StarCraft
Blizzard Entertainment
PC
Still one of the best real-time
strategy games ever made
(and practically a national
sport in South Korea), its
Zerg are a clear inspiration
for The Riftbreaker’s aliens.Geometry Wars:
Retro Evolved 2
Bizarre Creations
Xbox 360
My favourite twin-stick
shooter pits you against
simple geometric shapes
in a whirling maelstrom
of majestic neon chaos.Jacob Aron is New Scientist’s
deputy news editor. Follow
him on Twitter @jjaron