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Rifts

Co-op rifts tear open in caves and up in the sky, near wherever players are, and the land decides the kind. Step in and the view turns isometric: a run of floors (caves, halls or islands over the abyss) with the kind’s own Grown and hazards underfoot, and a boss at the end. Everyone inside fights together. A swing hits every Grown in front of you within reach, up to about 70° to either side: the floor shows your reach where you aim, and a gold ring lies under every Grown it would hit.

Wane rifts are different: they open in the world for ten minutes, there are no revives, and anyone may attack anyone. The Crimson Rift has its own seasonal ladder in the journal (J).

A rift's floors have the same effects as the open world (Effects and animation): the arc of a swing, the flash of a hit, drops that arc out and shine by rarity.

Light in the dark

Down here the dark is part of the picture. Light comes from what gives light: your own warm light and the other players', torches and braziers (they flicker), crystals and mushrooms, the stairs and the way out, shots in flight, rare drops, the great one, and the lava itself, which lights the rock round it. Each kind has its own air: cold blue in a Frost Rift, green under the leaves of the Thornwild, warm gold in a Gilded Rift, and the Hollow keeps the deepest dark of all. The Lower Crypt takes the colour of the dungeon above it.

• Depth. Walls stand taller, darker at the foot and lit along the top, and some carry a banner, a chain, a crack or moss. Stone floors are laid in slabs, and every wall throws a soft shadow at its foot. The walls between you and the camera sink round you, low beside you and full height a few steps off, and you show through anything that still covers you.
• Shadows. Everyone, every Grown, chest and drop has a soft shadow, and a second, longer one pointing away from the nearest torch.
• Clear at a glance. A rim of light shows every Grown: gold on an elite, red on the great one. Only the great one is named over its head. Point at any other Grown to read its name; an elite's has a ★ and what it can do under it, and over its life an elite wears a small gold diamond. On a phone, the elite you stand by is named. The floor's name, the time left and how much is cleared sit in a small bar at the top, with what is left under it.
• Every blow lands. A hit lights the dark round it for a moment, a kill lights the room and lets go of orbs of experience that fly to you.
• Wind-ups you can read. When an elite or the great one winds up a blow, a red ring fills at its feet: the blow reaches as far as the ring. Step out of it.
• On a phone a DASH button sits by JUMP while you are on a floor: tap it as you walk to dash, as Shift does on a keyboard.

How much is drawn follows Settings › Effects › Quality (Effects and animation):

The game lowers the quality by itself when it runs slowly (unless you turn that off), and the floors step down with it.

In a group the Grown are made for all of you: for each player past the first on the floor, a Grown that wakes has 80% more life and hits a quarter harder, and one time in ten more it wakes as an elite. A group of four meets 3.4 times the life and 1.75 times the blow of a player alone.

Rooms that pay

A rift is a run of rooms on the way to the lair, and each room pays off. A floor stays until its time is up even when nobody is on it, so whoever comes back in finds it as they left it.

• Room cleared. When the last Grown of a room falls, everyone on the floor sees ROOM CLEARED and how many rooms are left to the lair. An ambush room counts once it has sprung. The floor's bar at the top counts the rooms too: 3 rooms to the lair · 14 Grown left.
• Two side ways. Off two of the rooms a short passage leads to a small vault. Its way is shut until its room is cleared, then it opens for everyone. Over each way an arch shows what waits at its end: a Jewel of Ascent, a deep rune or a chest of gold, never the same twice on a floor.
• Take one. Each player takes the reward of one side way per floor: right click (on a phone, TAKE) at the vault's chest. The other arch then says You chose the other way, so choose by what you need, and by the time left.
• Deeper. When a rift's lair falls, stairs down open in the lair beside the way out. The way out takes you home with what you carry; the stairs take you one floor deeper (on a phone, DEEPER). A rift goes three floors deep: Deep 2 and Deep 3, each a tier harder, twelve minutes long, with one more twist per floor: more elites (3 in 10 of its Grown), swifter Grown, or less light. The great one of a deeper floor leaves everyone inside one more roll of rare loot for each floor down, and more gold, and the vaults' gold and runes grow with the depth. Everyone who goes down from a floor goes to the same floor below, and whoever falls on a floor down and goes back into the rift while it lasts is taken back down to it.

• A way back. Once the lair falls, a ring of light by the stairs you came in by and another in the lair take you from one to the other (on a phone, GO): whoever comes back in reaches the lair, and its stairs down, at once.

The Lower Crypt under a dungeon has its rooms cleared, its side ways and its rings too, but no stairs down: it is the dungeon's cellar and ends with it.

Every kind its own

Every kind of rift has a signature: something it does to you every 9 to 12 seconds while you fight, telegraphed on the floor with rings (and a warning sound) before it lands. Going in, each kind also has its own low sound under the music.

Hazards underfoot

A rift's hazard cells take a share of your life, whatever your armour, and each kind's has a sting of its own:

Nothing a rift does takes more than a fifth of your life at once on its first floor. Deeper down the signatures bite harder: a quarter more on Deep 2 (never more than a quarter of your life) and half again on Deep 3 (never more than 30%). The great one at the end of a rift fights as the others do, and walks round walls and chasms to reach you: see Great ones and how they fight.

The kinds of rift