Rift is an upcoming third-person shooter in development by production company HaZimation. The animation and game dev studio is also developing a companion feature film to Rift, developed in the same engine as the game itself, Unreal Engine 5.
HaZimation released an announcement trailer for Rift today that shows off some of the cover shooting, stealth, and melee combat featured in the game. Check out the trailer below to get a first look at the gameplay for Rift, which is being developed alongside an original animated feature film.
In Rift, your goal is to protect a boy named Max from a "science research facility fortress" called Axiom. Max has special psychokinetic abilities that you can use to fight off the throngs of enemies that guard Axiom as they try to prevent Max's escape. However, each psychic attack weakens Max, so you'll need to play judicially and be careful about how often you tap into his abilities in order to get through each level.
Described as a "third-person arcade-style shooter with elements of stealth and tactical gameplay," Rift's level put a new twist on the Capture the Flag game mode as you try to protect Max and escape from the facility. Rift is in development for PC and console and has a projected release date of Summer 2022 with an early access alpha release available in March 2022.
The animated feature of the same name is currently in development and scheduled to be released later in 2022. The studio has developed and released multiple feature films and shorts over the last decade, including 2036 Origin Unknown starring Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff, sci-fi thriller The Beyond, Sync, and I.R.I.S. The studio is currently developing an animated feature film based on the popular tabletop roleplaying game Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, which was adapted into a stealth/tactical RPG in 2018.
Western Digital is sponsoring the development of both the Rift game and film. Both projects are being developed exclusively on WD_Black drives. Rift's director HaZ Dulull said, "I believe this is a truly unique project and one of the first in the world to utilise Unreal Engine to create both an animated feature film and a fully-fledged video game to this scale."