Rift, a fairly popular MMO from Trion Worlds, has a mobile companion app. Earlier this December, the studio pushed out a free “beta" build that lets Rift users do all sorts of cool stuff, like, for example, chat in real-time with friends and guild mates, as well as peruse “the latest wall postings."

Rift Mobile [Free], as it’s called, also comes stocked with a trio of mini-games — Planar Invasion, Craft Critters, and Shinies — that give players, and apparently not just ones with a Rift account, a “chance" to win in-game crafting and artifact loot. These games all seem pretty simple, but hey, loot.

Trion describes this release as the “first stage" of an overall Rift Mobile rollout. The final launch, accompanied by an Android app, is expected in Q1. We’re pretty stoked to see where this goes — no-one has really nailed an MMO companion app, so it’ll be fun to watch it grow and, hopefully, become truly awesome.