World Expansion II brought many new enemies into the world of the Riftbreaker. The powerful, death-defying Necrodon was one of them. As you might already know, the Necrodon was a creature that we originally planned to include in the base version of the game. However, due to time constraints, we didn’t manage to flesh out the design and program all of its abilities in time. The Necrodon waited on the sidelines, waiting for a good moment to get a new life, which eventually came with the launch of the Into the Dark World Expansion. You will find a lot of parallels to this story while reading about today’s topic - the Drexolian.

Drexolian base model and several of its animations.

Drexolians were initially designed as one of the enemies of the Tropical Zone biome. They are the masters of disguise. Their bodies resemble a certain species of a tree commonly found in forest areas around the planet (huge reveal: Galatea is round, not flat). Their tall bodies are covered with hardened skin, resembling tree bark. It is quite stiff, which limits the creature’s mobility but gives it incredible resistance to many forms of damage. Drexolians also produce false leaves to give their disguise even more credibility. You shouldn’t be surprised if you build your base around one of these creatures only to find out about that fact hours later.

If you want to continue your deforestation practices, you'd better be ready to fight some angry trees.

These strange creatures are usually not hostile towards other species. Most of the time, they can be found simply resting, hidden among real trees. As long as they are not disturbed, you should be able to walk away unscathed. However, if you step too close for their comfort, there will be consequences. There will be no warning signs, and no lengthy ‘wake-up’ period like in the case of Gnerots. Drexolians will attack you immediately, and they have quite an arsenal of defensive techniques to use.

Oh, you wanted to run? It would be a shame if a wall rose up from the ground behind you.

Drexolians might be slow, but they are a deadly threat, both in close-quarters combat as well as from a distance. If you find yourself in the melee range, the creature will try to beat you to a pulp using its long arms disguised as tree branches. Those things might look brittle, but don’t let that fool you - even Mr. Riggs’ armor will have a hard time withstanding a flurry of hits from these. On the other hand - you are considerably faster, so if you notice an incoming attack, you should have no problems dodging it.

This forest looks like a nice source of plant biomass for a power plant... Nevermind, animal biomass will work as well.

If you get away from the angry tree monster, it’s going to try to chase you while simultaneously showering you with a barrage of splinters. Drexolians are able to rip off thin and razor-sharp pieces of their ‘bark,’ which they throw at enemies with great force. Our happy tree friends will also use this technique to wreck your base from afar. Drexolians might be quite passive in the wild, but you can expect literal hordes of them to join the attack waves during your campaign and survival runs in the Fungal Swamp biome.

Learning to spot camouflaged Drexolians will be a crucial skill in the Fungal Swamp.

The cherry on top of Drexolian’s ability set is tied to its slow movement speed. In order to effectively deal with their prey, these creatures can raise up the ground in front of them to form a temporary cage, greatly limiting the target’s movement. Once you’re walled in, you have only two choices - stand your ground and try to destroy the Drexolian before it destroys you, or break through the wall with your sheer firepower. Theoretically, you could wait until the wall sinks into the ground once more, but you’re likely to have experienced an express teleport back to your HQ in that time (i.e., you got wrecked).

Drexolians will gladly join other creatures and come knocking at the gates of your base if you get on their nerve.

The Drexolian had to wait for a while before the time came for its turn in the production pipeline. The Fungal Swamp biome was the perfect opportunity to bring it back. We’re quite happy with how it turned out, and we hope that you will enjoy the unique challenge it’s going to pose. You can see Drexolians in action during our streams on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3 PM CEST at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios. We are also getting ready for an experimental release of the World Expansion III - hop on to www.discord.gg/exorstudios to get notified when that happens.

See you soon!
EXOR Studios

Today, we’d like to talk about the music of The Riftbreaker. Some time ago, we explained what it takes to create convincing sound effects and voiceovers for the game. However, we have not talked much about the music, which is also a huge part of the game’s soundscape. In this article, we will discuss what goes into creating a soundtrack for a game like The Riftbreaker. We will also tell you a little bit about the themes we tried to sneak into the soundtracks of each biome, as well as the Adaptive Music System that rules it all.

We even had a string quartet rendition of The Riftbreaker Main Theme at a side-event to Gamescom 2019. It was probably once in a lifetime opportunities to hear it like that, so we're glad it was caught on tape.

Music for The Riftbreaker is composed by an experienced composer and multi-instrumentalist, Marcin Pukaluk. He has years of experience creating original music scores for movies, games, and other media. Marcin is a one-man army, composing, performing, and arranging all his pieces by himself. However, we couldn’t just come up to him and ask, “Hey mate, could you design a soundtrack for a game you know nothing about”? We needed to provide some context first.

We invited Marcin to have a chat and playtest the game in our office. The project was in its early stages at that point. However, it was already clear that The Riftbreaker combines the themes of heavy industrialization and advanced technology with the exploration of an unknown planet full of wonders of nature. After some discussions, we came to the conclusion that the instruments that emphasized those themes were synths, drums, and strings. This basic set of instruments would be supported with other sounds as necessary.

By analyzing the gameplay from the first playable demos, we came to the conclusion that we can divide each play session into three types of player activities: combat, exploration, and base building. All of these activities are very different from each other. To create a good soundtrack that always fits the mood of the events on the screen, we needed to take that into account. This is why we decided to create separate playlists, each with a slightly different style, for combat, exploration, and base-building. It was a crucial bit of info for Marcin to determine the mood of the tracks to compose.

A typical, calm and steady building piece. Gets you right in the groove of optimizing your supply chain.

The tracks that you can hear during base-building are quite calm and slow-paced but always have a steady rhythm. They are meant to help you focus on the task at hand without jumping into the foreground of the scene. The base instruments are supported by subtle industrial elements, like various ‘computer’ beeps, drones, and machinery clanging. All these elements fit well with what is usually happening within your base.

One of the exploration pieces from the original game. It accompanies the player while exploring the wilderness of Galatea 37.

The exploration playlist creates the feeling of mystery and tension as you explore the Galatean wilderness. Long, steady notes, coupled with additional ambient sounds like wind howling or water dripping, give off a vibe of danger. The rhythm section in these tracks is very limited or even completely absent at times, amplifying the lack of safety.

NO MERCY, DESTROY EVERYONE WHO THREATENS THE PEACE OF THIS PEACEFUL PLANET!

The last ‘main’ playlist in the game is battle music. It is the most dynamic of the three, featuring fast-paced drums and aggressive lead melodies performed on various instruments. We wanted to get your heart racing with these pieces. Listening to them makes you feel like you’re a superhero in a battle against the entire planet.

As the work on the game progressed, we also came up with additional ‘playlists’ that we thought could enhance the experience and make the soundtrack more complete.

The fear playlist can get really spooky at times.

The ‘fear’ playlist is a collection of the most atmospheric pieces in the game. These tracks accompany you when you are out exploring Galatea 37 at night. It is basically the ‘exploration’ type of music, but with the feeling of dread turned up to the maximum. It features an even more creepy ambiance and droning sounds that make you feel uneasy.

The idea behind the adventure playlist was to make you feel like an intrepid explorer. Like a certain copyrighted archeologist uncovering secrets of an ancient city.

Next up, we have the ‘adventure’ playlist. You can hear these pieces whenever you visit a new biome for the first time in the Campaign Mode or when you start a new Survival Mode run. Hopeful and full of joy, it is meant to inspire you on your mission to secure the future home for humanity.

Just wait for the drop. It's nasty.

The last music variant we came up with is the most experimental one - we call it ‘anticipation’ music. We asked Marcin whether he could compose a couple of pieces using the Shepard Tone phenomenon[en.wikipedia.org]. It’s an auditory illusion that makes the listener believe there is a constant tone in the music piece that is always rising. We use these tracks before the biggest attacks in the game to evoke feelings of danger and uncertainty.

We had to feature some metal-adjacent music in an expansion called Metal Terror.

It is also worth adding that each World Expansion that we released featured new music that fit the theme of the biome added in that expansion. The Metallic Valley music features heavy, distorted guitars and ‘cybernetic’ sounds to match the aesthetic of both the biome and the creatures you can meet there.

It's weird how music can evoke the feeling of space and hollowness of caverns. Special effects work wonders here.

The music of Crystal Caverns is characterized by a huge soundstage. Apart from the main instruments driving the music forward, you can also hear a ton of additional sound effects. Water dripping from the ceiling, wind howling in the distance, rock formations scraping against one another, and echoes of unknown creatures - you can hear all of those elements reverberating across the caverns, building the atmosphere.

While the music from the MEtallic Valley and Crystal Caverns could work in other biomes, the Fungal Swamp is definitely one of a kind.

World Expansion III takes place in a Fungal Swamp, a place teeming with life. We wanted the music to reflect that. However, we also wanted to give the soundtrack of the swamp its own unique character. You can expect to hear a lot of ethnic instruments in this biome - drums, didgeridoos, djembe, and mouth harps. Sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does, check it out:

The Riftbreaker features more than fifty individual music pieces, totaling up to almost four hours of original music. However, if we just let all of those music pieces play at random, we could end up in the middle of a heated battle with calm and relaxing building music in our ears. Or, quite the opposite - you don’t want the pumping battle soundtrack to keep playing long after you’re done defending your base. This is why we developed the Adaptive Music System.

The system controls the playback of all music in the game. It is an algorithm that analyzes the player's in-game situation and chooses the appropriate music piece to accompany it. It takes into account the current biome, the time of day, the number of enemies on the screen, and the player’s current activities. Based on the information gathered, a random piece from the appropriate playlist is selected. The system performs these checks quite often. It can also change the music on the fly - if you are exploring an unknown region and stumble upon a nest of enemy creatures, it will turn on the battle music for you. Once you’ve eradicated all threats, the music will switch back to the exploration theme.

The full remastered soundtrack for your listening pleasure.

As you can see, creating a soundtrack for a game is quite a complex task that requires a lot of forward-thinking and creativity. If you enjoy the work we put into it together with Marcin Pukaluk, you can listen to it in a remastered version that is available both on Steam and YouTube. Or, you can rip the original versions straight from the game files. Be our guest! (By the way, an updated version of the soundtrack with more remasters is coming. Stay tuned.)

As always, we invite you to check out our streams every Tuesday and Thursday on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios. All our previews, co-op streams, and behind-the-scenes segments happen right there. You can also always catch us on Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios.

See you there!
EXOR Studios

P.S.
Some time ago we published a modding spotlight article about WirawanMYT’s Expanded Arsenal mod. Wirawan has just published a massive update for his creation, featuring dozens of new technologies, challenging enemy variants, and even more complex resource chains. Check out the trailer below and download the mod to give it a try!