RIFT

RIFT is a fantasy MMORPG by Trion Worlds set in Telara, a world literally torn by elemental planes: tears that rip open in the sky and pour invasions onto the land. On top of that premise, the game built two hallmarks that still set it apart from the classic themepark MMOs of its era.

Instead of locking you into a fixed class, you pick one of four callings —warrior, cleric, rogue or mage— and mix up to three souls from a deep catalog to build your own hybrid. You can save multiple roles and swap them on the fly, so the same character shifts from tank to healer to DPS without starting over. It's one of the deepest, most flexible character-building systems the genre has produced, and it's still the reason many players come back to try it.

The other signature is the rifts the game is named after: dynamic events that spawn anywhere in the world and pull nearby players together to seal them before the invasions overrun the area. It's all framed by two opposing factions —the faith-driven Guardians and the tech-driven Defiant— that carry the story and the PvP.

RIFT is free-to-play and it doesn't hide its content behind a paywall: every expansion is included and you can play the full progression up to level 70 without spending a cent. What's optional is the Patron subscription, which grants experience, currency and convenience bonuses while it's active, and the RIFT Store, where Credits buy cosmetics, mounts, boosts and consumables. There's also REX, an item bought with real money and resold in-game for in-game currency, so anyone who'd rather spend time than cash can earn Credits without paying directly. In short: spending is aimed at convenience and looks, not at unlocking the game.

The game is live, but in maintenance mode under Gamigo, which bought Trion Worlds' assets in 2018. The population is low: around mid-2026 it hovered at just a few hundred concurrent players, far from its peak years. The flip side is that 2026, coinciding with its 15th anniversary, brought a 'quiet comeback': a new team with regular streams, server merges in North America to gather the community, and, in June, the first major patch in over two years. There was also a purge of long-inactive characters on one shard, so if you're returning after a long absence it's worth checking on your characters via the official site. It still gets minor patches and seasonal events, but no new expansions are on the horizon.

If you're after a gateway into classic themepark MMOs —a complete, free game with a class system that invites experimentation— RIFT is still a solid pick, especially for its story and PvE. The caveat, put plainly, is the one that matters: it's no longer the crowded world it once was, and there are zones and hours where you'll feel the emptiness. As a solo or small-group adventure it has aged with dignity; if what you want is the bustling anthill of an MMO at its peak, this isn't its moment. You can download it free from its official site or on Steam and see for yourself: you risk nothing but the download time.