The Rifted Skies Demo Is A Blood-Pumping Rush Of Roguelite Action

The Steam Next Fest demo for action-roguelite The Rifted Skies ticks all the right boxes while leaving a few questions only the full game can answer.

Developer DreamVR, whose previous VR projects were in location-based entertainment (LBE) venues, had one goal with The Rifted Skies, its first consumer VR offering: get people moving their arms again. While playing the demo in my barely five-meter-by-five-meter space, I immediately felt the desire for more space or a VR treadmill. It felt both like a throwback to older, more roomscale-friendly VR titles and a rarity for a platform that has increasingly been turning to more stationary controller-focused experiences.

I am not knocking games that lean in that direction, but nowadays when a game dares to demand more physicality out of you, it stands out. The physical, rhythmic combat in Batman: Arkham Shadow was arguably its best feature. Arm-based locomotion popularized by games like Gorilla Tag has become a VR subgenre unto itself and games that adapted that system for more narrative-centered projects like No More Rainbows and Outta Hand stood out in a very crowded field of single-player VR adventures. Games you can comfortably play while only needing to move your arms to point at an object.

The Rifted Skies demo introduces you to Derwish, a young man greeted by a yellow wisp who speaks of his nebulous lineage and the need to outpace the titular rift swallowing his world whole. It’s the fastest bit of world building I’ve ever seen done in a fantasy game before you’re off and running. The responsiveness of the arm swinging here should be commended. I have played other games where you can swing your arms to run and thrust them in the air to jump like Joyway’s Stride, none of which felt this fluid. The tradeoff here is the margin of recognition for “the player swung their arms” is so wide that it occasionally triggers when I didn’t want it to. At one point I lifted my right arm to adjust the volume in my headset and the game thought I was trying to run. I didn’t lift it quickly either. If you are doing anything other than actively playing the game, like reaching for a drink or adjusting your headset, I would suggest pausing the game.

Besides running, you also squat to slide under low hanging obstacles and thrust your arms in the air to jump. I should note here that these actions in the game have controller equivalents in the settings, so though DreamVR built The Rifted Skies to be played with your body, you can press A to jump and pull back on the right analog to squat down. Those of us with bad knees champion this bit of accessibility, but like the run motion, the squat recognition is generous enough that I opted for that over the controller-mapped option anyway.

The combat is pretty perfunctory. Your sword, the first weapon available to you, can be used for standard hack and slash melee, to deflect projectiles back at enemies, or be charged and flung at the ghostly creatures that periodically portal in to attack you. That said, it needed to be simple because, again, you’re on the run from the Rift, so you need to be able to dispatch enemies quickly. I fell into a pattern of throwing my blades at enemies that were charging up a projectile to stun them, then sprinting to their location and slashing them.

The magic in The Rifted Skies is when you get into a flow state: sprinting, jumping, gliding on air currents, and cutting enemies all in what feels like one continuous motion. Once you get moving, it is hard to stop even when you go down thanks to the generous checkpoints. You only stop when you reach the end of an area to select the bog-standard roguelite power ups. DreamVR nails its mission statement, creating an entertaining romp that remained compelling to play well beyond when my arms started to fatigue. The demo does an excellent job of presenting its core gameplay, even if I was left with questions by the end.

Visually, the world of The Rifted Skies is bright and colorful, but quickly started to feel repetitive as I recognized specific chunks of landscape several times already in my couple of runs. I’m curious if the full game will bring new biomes and environments to keep things fresh. In terms of fidelity, the environments are nothing to write home about and definitely feel more optimized for standalone headsets, but there is hardly any time to stop and stare at the details to begin with. I’m curious if it has more variety to offer deeper into the game.

Another question is, narratively speaking, what type of roguelite is this? Many roguelites have hinted at deeper lore at the onset of the action, only to quickly ignore any semblance of a narrative once you are settled into the action. Personally, without leaderboards, collectibles, or persistent rewards, those tend to run thin for me. Then there are games like Underdogs with a full story to tell and enough replayability to run it back repeatedly. The gameplay loop is rock-solid with no major complaints. The longevity is the question and a demo cannot truly answer that.

For now, The Rifted Skies is absolutely worth a wishlist and continued monitoring for more details.