Rust studio announces Riftlight, an arcade shooter with RPG elements

Survival simulation games are pretty serious.

Survival simulation games are pretty serious. Sometimes you just want to shoot things without having to question whether it's the right thing to do. Sometimes you want shooting to always be the answer to a problem. To sate these urges, Adam Woolridge of Ruststudio Facepunch Studios has just announced Riftlight, an arcade shooter with what he describes as 'light-RPG' elements. According to the game's first development blog, Riftlight will also feature looting, abilities and talent trees.

So far there are three classes, including Ranged, Caster and Melee. These are all pretty self-explanatory, though the Melee class is likely to raise some eyebrows. According to Woolridge, he wanted to include “a class that was different to what you'd expect from a shooter game”. A class that can't shoot is definitely different.

Interestingly, each playthrough will be different: level layout and missions will be entirely random, according to Woolridge. Mention is also made of a 'random item generator', meaning there's probably no end to the novelty of looting. The game supports 4-player coop, and Woolridge seems pretty keen to get a playable version out as soon as possible.

"I want it to be colourful and different," Woolridge says of the game, "not just screens and screens of black space and white stars. You're not gonna need a dictionary on standby to look up space-words or a Maths degree just to understand which gun to equip on your ship. The one that does the most damage is the best gun, and it'll just say so."

Sounds good. There's a very early gameplay video of Riftlight on the Facepunch website, as well as a bunch of concept art.