Foursaken Media originally announced their next project (well, one of their next projects) via a Tweet way back in May. At this time the name of the game wasn’t even known, but Foursaken described it as “a mix of Bastion and Mega Man Battle Network with tons of equipment, abilities and customization." Foursaken fans in our forums quickly made a discussion thread based off this limited information, and shortly after Foursaken joined in to reveal some more tidbits on the game. First off was its name, Phantom Rift. It’s described as an action RPG where you play as a wizard who’s caught in a strange nether-realm called The Rift. You roam around the randomly generated world of the Rift uncovering treasures, battling enemies, and eventually finding out why you’re there in the first place.
Battles in Phantom Rift are described as “pseudo turn-based" which means that when you encounter an enemy you’ll be able to perform basic attacks and dodging in real-time, but you’ll be waiting for a special meter to fill up in order to utilize one of your magical spells, which is really the meat and potatoes of combat. There will be a whopping 120+ different spells to discover in the game, and you’ll be able to carry 30 of them at a time in your character’s magic pouch. When the special meter fills during battle, you’ll get a random selection of 5 spells from your pouch of 30 to use, putting an interesting randomized element into each battle. The spells have all been finely crafted to play off one another and allow players to focus on certain areas, like melee attacks, elemental spells, or creature summoning.
In addition to all the magic stuff, Phantom Rift will offer a crazy amount of equipment and character customization options. Foursaken describes “hats, helmets, crowns, armor, furs, capes, gloves, gauntlets, robes, a huge variety of staffs, swords, and more" as just some of the thousands of items you’ll be able to equip on your character, all of which will affect how your character looks and plays. All the equipment will have 5 different levels of rarity, so loot-collecting fanatics should have plenty to keep themselves busy. Along with all this information about Phantom Rift, Foursaken has today released a brand new trailer showing the game in action.
As you can see from the video, the way the world sort of flies together as you roam around is very Bastion-like, and the way battles are laid out is very reminiscent of Mega Man Battle Network. The influences are definitely there, but Phantom Rift also very much feels like its own thing.
One final tidbit worth mentioning is how multiplayer works in the game. There’s no dedicated multiplayer functionality at all, rather you’ll simply be able to run into other players’ wizards at random times in the game world and battle against them. There won’t be any major penalties for losing, but there will be rewards for winning in the form of a spell from that player’s spell pouch. The multiplayer is designed to be built seamlessly into the rest of the game, and the matchmaking all takes place behind the scenes so that if you do choose to take on another wizard you’ll be battling against someone who is of a similar level as you. Also, if you just plain don’t want anything to do with the multiplayer part of the game, you can turn it off, which also means Phantom Rift won’t require a constant online connection.
All in all Phantom Rift sounds like another ambitious genre mashup from Foursaken Media. They’re looking to submit in the next few weeks and are targeting a launch sometime in September. Be sure to check out the discussion thread in the forums for more, and we’ll bring you more news on Phantom Rift as it becomes available.
