Review: Rift: Storm Legion offers a ton of content

In addition to the new area, Storm Legion boasts four new Souls for you to tinker with. Rather than add new classes altogether, Rift adds one new skill tree for each existing class. While this may seem like a minor addition, it is actually so much more. Due to how classes and skill trees work in Rift compared to other MMOs, each skill tree feels like a class in and of itself with a class dictating the general combat capabilities of a player. The great thing about these Souls is they are available from the beginning of the game and don’t require a level cap to utilize, unlike much of the new content. This incentivizes players to create new characters and start their journey in Rift all over again, or just create new builds that include new Souls.

The Warrior class’ soul, Tempest, is an electricity-attuned mage knight. The Tempest can dish out tons of magic damage using various spells while using versatile situational spells to disappear out of sight. It’s a very handy Soul to have especially considering the class itself is the most beefy out of the bunch. The ranged Tempest also has great power using area of effect spells making him an effective source for aggro as well as maintaining it.

Just like how the Tempest is atypical for its class, the Defiler is the new soul for the Cleric. Rather than heal, the Defiler primarily focuses on lowering the effectiveness of healing skills on opponents as well as cast spells that redirect damage from allies to enemies. Defilers act more like a caster that has the ability to control life itself and can be a fun class to use, however, it tends to be more on the passive side. Still, these disease and pain spreading monstrosities can be fun to fiddle with if you so choose.

The Rogue’s Tactician Soul acts more as a complement rather than a skill tree to dedicate great focus on. The ranged options and the healing makes the Tactician a great support skill tree for Rogues that want to contribute in more ways than one in team fights, however, this means that the class will be largely underutilized by damage dealers considering how it fails to help keep the Rogue’s damage specialization high. This doesn’t make the Tactician useless, rather, it’s perhaps the most useful new Soul for existing characters since characters don’t hinge on this one soul. Considering how the Rogue’s non-damage dealing trees were less than adequate, the Tactician might help to prove the class’ usefulness in new areas.

Perhaps the most interesting of the bunch is the Harbringer. Acting as a melee mage, this new Soul for the Mage can bring out a ton of hurt to a single target. While mages are mostly known for keeping their distance while attacking, Harbringer’s playstyle is the complete opposite of this philosophy. While dodging, damage absorption, and healing spells keep them alive, lightning spells rain death upon your enemies. It’s quite a fascinating role and definitely untraditional for the mage class. Unfortunately, if you want to start on this Soul, it’s best to start with a new character as changing builds for existing classes can be tricky and sometimes expensive. Still, the Harbringer is the most fun Soul to use out of all the new ones.

The last major addition Storm Legion makes is Dimensions. Acting as a personal zone, you can buy furniture and decorations to deck out your own home. Dimensions act primarily for keeping your character tied to Rift and make it more personable. You have a home to return to that you furnished yourself. It’s more of a modeling sim than it is something that contributes any depth to the already existing foundations of the game. As a result, Dimensions largely feel like a pointless add-on for players to waste their time, and money, with.

Rift: Storm Legion sets the bar for how expansions shouldn’t be limited on how much content is delivered. Despite the absurd amount of game that is in this game, not all of it is good and much of it will feel like padding to draw out the MMO experience making it feel pointlessly long winded. Still, what Storm Legion offers is a great set of content that delivers mostly fun. If you enjoyed Rift and haven’t touched it due to a lack of content, then Storm Legion will definitely surprise.

The word massive isn’t a simple exaggeration of how much content is available in Rift: Storm Legion. While most expansions add a combination of new classes, races, and a small explorable area befitting the new level cap, Rift takes a different approach. Storm Legion offers content that rivals the original game, if not more, making one’s stay a more permanent one rather than a temporary one. However, all is not without faults. While there are a lot of new toys to play with, much of the game remains largely the same.

In order to begin the expansion, you will find a portal leading to the new continents, Brevane and Dusken, in the snowy recesses of Iron Pine Peak. From there you have the option to choose which new continent you want to explore but either way you’ll be traveling between the two in order to reach the new level cap of 60. These new continents are huge and rival the main continent found in the first game. Additionally, they are filled with more quests and things to do compared to its predecessor.

Whether you’re wandering through the deathly plains of Dusken or the warren fields of Brevanne, dangerous monsters await. These new monsters will be tougher than any foe found in the original game and as a result will pose quite a challenge to those seeking it. This means that going through the game solo isn’t recommended but at the same time it also adds a social dynamic that the game encouraged previously. The monsters that inhabit these lands may be joined by creatures that spawn from rifts that open up in the middle of these areas. These rifts require a group to tackle and because they are so spontaneous, it encourages players to stick together and work with each other to overcome such hardships.

Questing feels much more cohesive in Storm Legion. Each zone or area within a continent feels like a large playground or a theme park filled with attractions and thrills. Rather than entering a camp or a city to collect all of the quests – making such settlements more like a quest hub rather than a city – players will run into quests much more organically. When you kill a soldier, you can be granted a quest asking for you to kill additional soldiers or often times quests will be lying on the ground just waiting for it to be picked up. Storm Legion breaks the monotonous feeling of clearing all the quests in one region and then finding the next quest hub in another region, just to do the same thing again.

Even so, questing in Storm Legion feels largely like a chore due to the repetitive quests and the miniscule amount of experience gained from completing each one. A majority of the quests boil down to killing a certain amount of enemies that exists in one area. After you’re done it’s time to move onto the next sustainable zone of experience. While the way you approach these quests might have changed, the gameplay itself has largely remained the same.

Still, if you enjoyed going around exploring and finishing up all of the quests in a given area, there is great joy to be had. Artifacts are scattered and hidden, giving a sense of accomplishment once you’ve found them all. In addition, the interesting tidbits of stories that you’ll hear from the NPCs in the game help to do a great amount of world-building, as well as construct a narrative that propels you forward as you face off against the dragon Crucia.