The Riftbreaker is a sleeper indie hit that does right by Mass Effect: Andromeda

The Riftbreaker understands something Mass Effect: Andromeda never did - scientists, not soldiers, should initiate first contact.

Thousands of people, millions of hours and billions of dollars are pumped into the invention of a high-tech supercruiser capable of navigating star clusters as if they were parking lots. The ship is stocked and staffed with cutting edge cryotech and the best, brightest brains in the galaxy. Centuries pass before it finally reaches alien territory, although humanity’s lapse into its learnings is near immediate. Like clockwork, science and linguistics are eschewed for the rip-roaring rumble of assault rifles as Mass Effect: Andromeda promptly shoots itself in the foot.

Reception to Mass Effect: Andromeda has always felt as if it’s been at least partially driven by bad faith actors. It is not – and arguably was not at any point – half as egregiously terrible as people like to claim. The squadmates are great, the gunplay is best-in-series, and its status as the first game in a trilogy that never was makes it hard to properly envision just how many hidden dominoes it might have lined up. Yeah, the kett – bad guy aliens who were basically just the bad guy aliens from the original Mass Effect trilogy – were pretty uninspired, and yeah, that reveal was a bit of a stinker for anyone accustomed to BioWare’s previous pedigree. But for the most part, it was an above average triple-A game. Interestingly enough, its initial ambition has since been better accomplished by an indie gem from a couple of months ago called The Riftbreaker.

At face value, these are two totally different games. Mass Effect: Andromeda is a sprawling shooter with RPG sensibilities and a complex branching narrative, while The Riftbreaker is a base-building survival sim with respectable strategy elements and no dialogue choices. The only real commonality between them is a shared interest in the cosmos, which is the only thing necessary for appreciating how The Riftbreaker does space exploration one better than BioWare’s galaxy-hopping follow-up to video games’ most beloved space opera.

Earlier this year, I spoke to an ex-senior writer at BioWare about what went wrong with Mass Effect: Andromeda. More so than anything else, his belief was that the entire framing of first contact wasn’t handled in the way it should have been. The Andromeda Initiative, at its most basic level, was intended to bridge the gap between galaxies. It was to be spearheaded by scientists, diplomats, and explorers. Instead, the Council species’ split-second reaction to the first non-Milky Way species they saw was to point the gun, pull the trigger, and pump the perceived bad guy full of futuristic lead. Narratively speaking, protagonist Ryder was never supposed to be a Pathfinder – that was their father’s job. The thing is, their father robbed them of the opportunity to properly replace him not because he filled the boots first, but because he defined what those same boots would symbolically mean to the rest of humanity down the line. 

This is where The Riftbreaker shines. After playing through a simulation of an alien planet called Galatea 37, you assume control of a scientist named Ashley and make your way to the real deal alongside an AI mech known as Mr. Riggs. There are definitely a few shades of Titanfall 2 in how the story plays out from here – despite Riggs’ programming being militaristic in contrast to your scientific curiosity, you rub off on each other out of necessity as you’re forced to survive. Riggs isn’t quite as endearing as Titanfall 2’s robot companion, mind, but then again Ashley is 100 times more intriguing than… John? Jack? I can’t remember. Anyway, it sort of balances out.

The main difference between The Riftbreaker and Andromeda isn’t that the former has no violence. You craft flamethrowers, fight monsters with massive mech swords, and use all kinds of turrets to automatically shred potential intruders while you’re off exploring. The thing is, these relatively minor bouts of belligerence are drastically overshadowed by a sincere desire to learn about this world and ensure humanity’s arrival there doesn’t impinge on its own natural order. You never attack anything that doesn’t attack you first, and there are several stages in the game where you can completely avoid combat instead of being narratively pigeonholed into engaging with it. On the flipside, Ashley constantly berates Riggs and her former superiors for their overindulgence in military spending, vocally argues against unnecessary use of force, and passionately appeals for the importance of the scientific method. At no point in time does she have even the slightest urge to inflict harm on another living creature; she is there for science first, humanity second, and survival dead last. 

It’s also pertinent to examine the actual mechanics of the game. If you want, you can power your entire base by installing multiple animal biomass generators that require carcasses to generate electricity, meaning you can approach The Riftbreaker as an unempathetic killer on a planet that doesn’t belong to you – if you want. On the contrary, most of the energy sources are renewable: wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal plants, and biomass generators are just some of the most efficient and effective methods of energy control in the game. The more you listen to the actual dialogue that transpires between Ashley and Riggs – especially as the latter begins warming to the former’s righteous idealism – the more it begins to make sense that you’re not here to kill. You are here to see if this is a possible place where humanity and the planet’s indigenous fauna can live alongside one another. It’s not just that dangerous animals need to be exterminated before a colony lands – it’s that the safety of these animals needs to be preserved before a colony arrives to kill them. 

That’s the true purpose of your mission in The Riftbreaker. And again, yes, there is combat that you are forced to engage with as part of the narrative. There are times when you must make use of your rigorous and expensive military training. You cannot pull out some magical marvel of technology capable of transmitting your true intentions to the hellish legions of Nurglax and Canoptix attempting to rip your face off, and the only units in the game officially classed as ‘friendly’ are drones. In context, though, these issues just seem like products of a harsh reality. In a world where billionaires eschew global issues to funnel money into vainglorious three-legged races to Mars, The Riftbreaker is less about conquering space and more about uniting it. 

To put it plainly, all I’ve thought about throughout my 15 hours of playtime is what that BioWare writer told me about how essential it is to get first contact right. Now I’m convinced that all those stories about space soldiers are fundamentally wrong, and that science, reason, and empathy should prevail over shootybangs even if it means success isn’t guaranteed – it’s better to die trying than survive alone on a planet that never even wanted you.

Written by Cian Maher on behalf of GLHF.