I had a whole intro planned around the combination of RIFT's fire and water elementals. It would have been like a nature documentary, the end result of which was a little Steam baby. To be honest, though, who wants to be forced into considering the technical difficulties of magmic rutting? And wouldn't creatures from the other planes just feel left out? Instead, we'll try this: RIFT's free-to-play incarnation is on Steam now, should that be the distribution platform that you favour. For existing players, the more significant news is a recent livestream held by the developers, in which they revealed the content roadmap leading up to the next expansion, RIFT 3.0.
Alongside the free download, RIFT's Steam version offers three DLC starter packs: the Ascended, Patron, and all-out ridiculously named Ultimate Hardcore Patron editions. Not that they're needed. RIFT had one of the more impressive free-to-play transitions, essentially giving access to the full game with no real penalties.
As for the future, Junkies Nation diligently wrote up the upcoming features, taken from the livestream. They reveal that update 2.5 is due out soon, and will feature a new sliver, dungeon, new chronicles, and a new questline, which will introduce the new water continent, planned for the 3.0 expansion, and act as a test bed for underwater combat.
Thanks, Massively.
