Fight it out for the best loot in sci-fi arcade shooter Riftstar Raiders, out on PS4 next week

You are a Riftstar Raider; skilled pilots adapted with cybernetics and flying highly customisable ships, in the pursuit of money, jobs, and loot. You and your squad might be what separates the Spiral Arm from existence or annihilation – and in 4 days, we’re ready to launch on PS4.

The Spiral Arm is torn with conflict. Sinful factions fighting a pointless, everlasting war: the greedy Pirates secluded in the Far Reach, the prideful Federation ruling the galaxy with an iron fist from Hyperion, their capital planet sitting at the heart of the Inner Realm and the rapacious WarSwarm, an unstoppable hive mind of self-duplicating machines, spreading like a virus dangerously closing on the Federation’s sectors. Amidst the chaos, an unimaginable force is growing in the dark, the wrath of the Ancients is about to awake.

Over the last two weeks, the trial version of RiftStar Raiders has been live on Playstation with thousands of players picking the galaxy clean; modding, reinventing and customising their ships.

Whether you are a team player or a lone trigger, defeating enemies is key to collecting a variety of loot in order to improve your spacecraft. Enemies commonly drop blue shield energy capsules and Starbux, the currency widely used across the Spiral Arm. Hull integrity’s red health capsules are less common and can save you from destruction, quite handy when in the heat of the action. But these are nothing next to Perk crates, their green containers are a lot rarer and contain one specific system part that can be used to customize and improve your spacecraft.

A Raider spacecraft is made of 3 core systems: weapons, shield and boost engine. Under each of these, a single sub-system archetype can be equipped at once, except weapons which allow for a primary and a secondary. Each offers a unique ability for a total of 9 archetypes shared across the various systems. Every single one of these can be upgraded and customized through their own tech tree. In this harsh corner of the Galaxy that is the Far Reach, everything comes at a price, which is why Starbux are of the utmost importance.

Purchase upgrades and attach looted perks to dedicated slots on your ship. The number of upgrades and perk slots that a build can receive varies depending on the system. Each and every perk is unique and offers a specific improvement or addition over the archetype’s default attributes. From freezing your enemies with the Iceberg perk to increasing the number of your bullets with the Cluster Projectiles perk, a high variety of combinations can be achieved.

It is possible to focus on a single perk and increase its efficiency level by equipping it several times per build. However, never forget that Perks are consumable items, you’ll need to loot the number you need.

The content of a Perk container may vary depending on the faction of the enemy that dropped it as well as the sector in which the fight happened. Some are rarer than others and identifying where and who drops what will be key to achieve the best loadouts.

Decide whether you want to deal damage, tank incoming projectiles, support your squad or even heal friendly units. Stuck on a mission? Change your strategy by experimenting with some new combinations. Or even invite some friends and form a squad! Focus on offense, defense, movement, or all of them at once, the choice is yours.

Mixing and matching perks with various upgrades can create for some unexpected and quite satisfying effects: what about some homing missiles that stun enemies upon impact with a chance of creating a black hole? Your teammates can be caught in the effect of your perks, like the attraction radius of a black hole for instance. But as the Raiders motto says “The less of us, the more for me”.

For this very reason playing with friends allows for better strategies and planning as anyone can take on a unique role and contribute towards the same objectives. Although, never forget just like you, they are racing for the most and best loot. So better work on your piloting skills and Grappler aim in order to be the first one to snatch every single piece of loot.

There’s still some time to download the trial version of RiftStar Raiders from Playstation Store before we launch on the 23rd February. Wipe out hordes of enemies, and sink your teeth into the vast customisation and class building system in the game, and upgrade to the full version to keep all your gear from the trial.

Raider! To your spacecraft, tune up, team up and scramble!

See you in the Rift…

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