Adventure in the world of Telara as either a noble Guardian or technomagical Defiant and enter a dynamic fantasy where 8 primal forces battle for control in an ever-changing landscape. Build your own class using the Ascended Soul system, embark on epic conflicts that bring you into the story, battle others in exhilarating Player vs. Player combat, achieve new heights of power by tackling epic raids, and so much more.  

Rifts and other dynamic events can be triggered by players, scheduled by the development team, or even occur spontaneously. Dynamic events within the game can lead to a range of changes across the world, including everything from minor events to dramatic shifts in the game’s landscape and the opening of new areas. Players will connect with hundreds of thousands of other gamers to battle creatures overrunning the world, as well as each other.

Rift will adopt a free-to-play business model starting June 12, 2013, and players will be able to experience the entire game world; every dungeon, every zone, and every level and get full access to all current and future game updates.

“We have been listening to feedback from our players and watching the continuously developing MMO community, and are now ready to launch RIFT as a premium free-to-play experience,” said Bill Fisher, Creative Director of RIFT. “After taking our time and planning a careful transition; we are very excited to bring an enhanced game experience to everyone, without barriers.”

All players will be able to explore the entire world of Telara for free and will have access to the expanded in-game RIFT Store where a variety of services--mounts, boosts, wardrobe items, and more--will be available for purchase. An optional subscription will still be available that grants a slew of “Patron” benefits and bonuses to maximize the RIFT experience. Trion will celebrate its current and previous subscribers with loyalty and currency rewards for their time spent playing RIFT thus far.

“As a gamer’s game, a super fun and fair experience is of the utmost importance to us,” said Fisher. “Players will have the opportunity to buy customizations and boosts to heighten their play experience; however the best gear in the game will always have to be earned through playing RIFT.”

RIFT free-to-play kicks off with massive content update 2.3, Empyreal Assault, which will open up a new zone, world event, chronicle and much more. Empyreal Assault launches on June 12th, 2013 for all Ascended of Telara.