Rift

Rift is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Trion Worlds, launched in 2011 for Windows. Set in the world of Telara, it casts players as 'Ascended', resurrected heroes defending the world from invasions of elemental planar forces. Rift earned early acclaim for two signature features. The first was its dynamic 'rift' events, in which tears in reality open across the landscape and spill out waves of enemies, prompting nearby players to band together spontaneously to seal them, creating a sense of a living, reactive world. The second was its remarkably flexible 'soul' class system, which let players combine multiple talent trees within their chosen calling to craft highly customised, hybrid builds and swap between saved 'souls' to suit different roles. Polished and feature-rich at launch, it offered the genre's full suite of dungeons, raids, crafting and PvP. Originally subscription-based, it transitioned to free-to-play in 2013 to broaden its audience, and was expanded with content including the Storm Legion expansion. Well regarded as a high-quality, accessible WoW-style MMO with genuinely innovative systems, Rift built a solid community and ran for many years. It is remembered as one of the stronger themepark MMORPGs of the early 2010s and Trion Worlds' flagship title.