The Riftbreaker

I don't write reviews often, and this one I am writing looooong after I have abandoned the game (though surely will pick it up again one day).
What can I say, rarely you see such a dedication, effort and love put into a game. I mean, production value is just above any expectations from a relatively small team. It is a SOLID product, meaning when you buy this you will get:
* no experience breaking bugs
* nice visuals and sound
* solid gameplay (if you enjoy this kind of games)
* engaging progression
* continuous support (and updates!)
* ...and a lot more that I have forgotten over years, or haven even seen as I missed a couple of major updates :)
Imo not so many games can offer this for the price. Kudos to the team, you made something that I have sincerely enjoyed, every single moment of it. Keep rocking, guys!

Hours Played: 18.7h (so far)
Verdict: ★★★★★ / Super Addictive
I’ve had so much progress and fun in just 18.7 hours, and I’m definitely going to keep playing more. The Riftbreaker is one of those games where every session feels rewarding — you always unlock something new, upgrade your mech, expand your base, or survive a crazy wave that makes you feel like a genius.
Why I’m loving it:
Base-building is deep and satisfying
Combat feels powerful and smooth
Tons of things to progress, research, and upgrade
Every biome looks incredible and has its own challenges
That “just one more mission” feeling is REAL
Final thoughts:
If you like sci-fi, automation, tower defense, or mech combat, this game mixes all of them perfectly.
Had a great 18.7 hours — and I’m not stopping anytime soon.
Highly recommended.

For me in 2026, this is still the BEST tower defence game on the market, been playing since original release for nearly 4 years now on GoG, The Dlc packs are good additions, and sense of destruction is fantastic once your unlocking all the top tiers


Ignore my Steam playtime, got about 400+ Hrs on my GOG account version, only repurchased on Steam as it's less faff to join co-op with steam friends.

They are Billions, Factorio and Diabolo II (combatwise) had a threesome. This is their child.
Criminally underrated game!

The Riftbreaker is is an excellent example of a studio having a vision, executing on that vision, and then iteratively improving on that vision. I've played the game twice, once near release on Game Pass, and now more recently here on Steam. Both times I found the game difficult to put down.
The Game
Your main goal is to build a sizable base from which to stage both your offensive and defensive actions; offensive being things like making mining outposts or taking ground to build defensive outposts, and defensive being actively defending against the enemy.
The enemy is a huge horde of various threatening wildlife brought together by the extremely dangerous ecosystem of Galatea 37. There's something like 30+ unique wildlife in the game, each with their own variations. Each creature has its own damage type strengths and weaknesses, their own way of attacking, and their own role in the attack hordes. As you progress, these enemy hordes will grow larger and will gain the aid of powerful Omega class creatures that are larger than all the others. These Omegas also have a number of modifiers that are straight out of Elite packs you might find in ARPGs like Diablo. These attacks trigger every 15 to 30 minutes in normal gameplay. They are also scripted to occur under certain circumstances.
Defense wise, you get a little bit of everything from the humble machine gun turret to giant hellfire missiles that can travel a solid 1/8 of the average map size and obliterate entire groups of enemies. Diversification is everything when it comes to building a good defense. You need to cover multiple damage types (to ensure an enemy with a certain damage resistance doesn't walk all over you) and multiple ammunition types (to ensure you don't drain your ammo reserves by shooting just one type of ammo).
Between horde attacks, you either build or explore. Building is the more fleshed out part of the game, for certain. Lots of structures, logical ways to put them together, and a very intuitive building system.
At base, exploration isn't really the main focus of the game. This has improved with the recent introduction of lootable gear with exclusive modifiers. Even still, you're mostly going to be running from one bioanomaly to another (they're loot chests, but fleshy!) hoping you get something decent. These weapons can be really good, and will significantly boost the offensive power of your mech, but you don't necessarily need them to complete the game.
By the end of the campaign, you will need to maintain at least 4 somewhat sizable bases along with your main base. They are necessary to mine some of the other metal types, each type belonging to a unique biome.
Endgame consists of throwing all of your gathered resources into a pit to do the end game ritual. Big attack horde. Done.
The Good
Everything about this game is so quick and snappy. It's not a hotkey nightmare like some TDs or RTSs, and the defaults exist to give you an easy way to get to some of the most often used buildings. I don't think there's a single building that takes more than 4 button presses maximum to place, even with the variety of structures available. Combat is very similar to a classic stick shooter, with a few more buttons for special abilities.
You're never left aimless. There's always a new objective to complete. Objectives are not time-gated, so you can tackle them whenever you like, however you like. You can even ignore them for a time if you want to just build or explore.
On the factory side of things, every building has a distinct role. There's rarely more than a single way to get a resource, and everything solid goes into an ethereal bank that buildings can pull from. Liquids need to be physically routed with pipes, but that is very easy, especially since you don't have to deal with going around conveyor belts. If you're looking for a complex factory game, this isn't it. But for beginners in the genre? This might be a good entry point.
The environment is beautiful. The buildings look cool. By the end of the game, your main base will be filled with so much sci-fi crap, you'll be wondering how you even understood what you put together in the first place.
Performance is top notch. The only time I slowed down was on the VERY last attack of the extended post-game campaign, where you're dealing with the equivalent of 3-5 of your normal enemy horde attacks all at once.
The Bad
Research
The Riftbreaker is not a complex game. Once you really know what you're doing, I imagine you could gather enough resources to finish the game in about 5 hours, maybe less, with research being the main time gating factor. And that's the kicker. Research.
Research, I think, just takes a tad bit too long. This became overwhelmingly apparent in the post-game content. I was forced to just wait to finish the final research (about 21 minutes) even though I had something like quadruple the amount of resources required to build the structure I was trying to unlock. Even during the mid-game, you'll find you need to come up with something minor to keep yourself busy while you wait for a research to unlock the thing you really need to progress. This is amplified by the extensive research trees. 100s of research nodes, each ranging from 1 minute to 20+ minutes depending upon your research setup. New player experience, this may not be that bad. It gives them time to learn more about the game, add more to their base, and explore. However, returning players may find the slog of just waiting for numbers to tick down a bit more grating. That was certainly my experience.
The Camp
Look. I enjoy the Command and Conquer series. I grew up thinking Red Alert 3's live action cutscenes were the coolest things ever. I love a good amount of camp in my media. But man. The story, acting, and writing for this game really are not the focus. The main campaign's story is very generic. It was hard to get heavily invested in Ashley's background, especially since her voice actor does the absolute bare minimum for expressing emotion. Mr. Riggs VA does a bit better, but he's also just an AI in a mech suit. There's not much to learn about him. I can stomach listening to them, don't get me wrong. I just think the game would benefit enormously from giving the VAs for these characters actual direction. The DLC stories are a bit more interesting, focusing in on certain biomes on Galatea 37 and how they function, but really just serve as more set dressing. Still fun experiences though!
I can get behind the ultimate message of the game. Respect the world you're on. You hurt it, it will hurt you.
Post Game Content
The post game content update is what brought me back to the game. Was it worth it? Kinda. If you've built an extensive resource stock-pile, you'll be heavily time-gated by research progress. After all the research is done, the final building is kind of absurd. It will take you a solid hour to figure out how to pull together the resources you need for it, even with a well stocked base. Then comes powering it. I had to purify water from just about every pool in my headquarters map to get it running. There were fusion reactors everywhere. Fun? Yeah. Worth doing again? Probably not. The bonuses from the other megastructures were cool though!
Conclusion
Game is fun. Give it a try. You'll know very quickly if its your cup of tea. I emphatically recommend it to everyone, if nothing but for the fact that I think EXOR deserves money for making a unique and fun experience that they've been refining for four years now.

Riftbreaker is a great game, mix of RTS, Tower Defense, Base Building, Action RPG. Decent story and graphics. Runs well on linux

It took me about 59 hours to complete the main game + the 3 DLC's and to unlock 46/54 achievements. This was done solo and on the normal difficulty.

I'm planning on grinding a bit more for the other achievements too and try to get this 100%.

The game is fun, especially with friends. There is a bit of grinding involved, but nothing too crazy. Destroying waves of enemies, upgrading your base and gear, research a very extensive research tree and utilizing new types of ores/fluids are some of the main things you'll be doing.

Would highly recommend it, but would even recommend it more when it's on sale (which is when I bought it). Especially great to play with friends.