Guides · Playing together

Riftfall

Every player, or every pair, wakes on a shard of the broken sky with nothing in hand. The Vael caches hold blades, armour and blocks; the Crown isle at the centre holds the best. Bridge, loot, fight. There is no waking again. Then the Rift wakes, and the isles crumble into the cloud sea from the edge inward. The last one standing wins.

The Sundered Crown from above: a ring of shards round the broken ring the Crystal once hung in, a crystal leaning at its heart, the cloud sea far below.

How to get in

From the title menu: under Emberhold, press Riftfall. Its window has three tabs: Play, Ranks and Record.
Solo sets 8 players on 8 shards, one each. Pairs sets 12 players on 6 shards, two to a shard. Each button says how many are waiting.
Your character is the one you play in the Riven Lands, with your name and your look. Your bag stays at home: you start a round empty-handed.

The round

Sides. In Pairs, each shard’s two wear its colour: Red, Cyan, Yellow, Purple, Green or Orange.
Bots fill the seats. 30 seconds after the first player sits down, bots take every empty seat. A bot carries a hollow rune before its name. Bots loot, bridge and keep ahead of the Rift; beating one gives fewer Embers, and it never counts for the ranks.
The countdown. 6 seconds; nothing can hurt you before the fighting begins.
6 minutes at most. The last player or pair standing wins at once. If anyone is still up at 6:00, they are ranked by kills, then by players left, then by health.

The Rift

The Rift is a ring round the centre of the Sundered Crown. Every block outside it crumbles into the cloud sea, isles and bridges alike, and nothing can be built past it. While it moves, the tops about to fall turn to glowing riftstone, about 12 seconds ahead. When the ground under you starts to glow, move inward.

When	The ring	What it means
0:00 to 1:15	Holds at 48 blocks	Calm: loot your shard and bridge out.
1:15 to 3:45	Closes from 48 to 12 blocks	The shards fall first, then the mid isles.
3:45 to 4:45	Holds at 12 blocks	Only the Crown isle stands.
4:45 to 5:45	Closes to nothing	The last close. Nothing is left.

The ring’s chart on the HUD shows its edge now, where it is closing to, and you as a dot. The count beside it says how long until it moves or stops.

The caches

Vael caches stand on every shard, on the mid isles and on the Crown. What is in them rolls new each round. Your shard’s first cache always holds Skystone, a Stone Sword and food, and sometimes an Iron Helmet.

Where	What a cache can hold
Your shard	Skystone, Iron Swords, iron armour, Recurve Bows and Arrows, Iron Pickaxes, Stone Bricks, now and then a Sunapple
The mid isles	Iron Swords and iron armour, Recurve Bows and Arrows, Sunapples, Squall, Skystone
The Crown isle	Dawnspar Swords and Dawnspar armour, Recurve Bows and Arrows, Sunapples, Squall and Stonewake, Skystone

The Crown is worth the crossing, and everyone knows it. Loot your shard first, then decide who reaches the centre before the Rift decides for you.

Building

Skystone and Stone Bricks from the caches go down as in Hearthwar, and only what was put down this round breaks. The shards themselves never break; the Rift takes them.
Skystone breaks in 0.5 seconds by hand. Stone Bricks take 4 seconds by hand, 1.1 with an Iron Pickaxe.
A bridge is a road for anyone. Break it behind you, or wall the end.

Dying

One life. A death is final.
What you carried spills where you fell, for whoever gets there first. Fall into the void, and the void keeps it.
In Pairs, your partner fights on. Your pair is out when both have fallen.
Out, you watch the players still fighting.

Embers and rewards

The results of a Riftfall round: every side in its finishing place with its kills, your Embers and your record. — The results.

Embers by place: 32 for the winner, then 20, 16, 13, 11, 10, 9 and 8, and more for every kill. A bot is worth less than a player.
Items go to your bag in the Riven Lands: 8 Skystone for a round, 16 Skystone and a Wanestone for a win.
The day’s caps are shared by Emberhold, Hearthwar and Riftfall: at most 400 Embers a day across every mode, and items for your first three finished rounds. Every cap starts over at midnight UTC.
They are the same Embers Emberhold gives, spent on the same looks: see Embers in the Emberhold guide.

Ranks and your record

Your record for Riftfall keeps wins, rounds, kills, deaths, your win streak and your best streak. The Riftfall window’s Record tab shows it.
The Ranks list players by wins or by best streak, among your friends or everyone. Only players signed in to an account are ranked, and bots never are.
Seasons last 28 days, as in Emberhold. The Ranks start over each season; your record never does.

Commands

/riftfall in chat, in a round, says which round it is, what it is doing and how many seats are taken. Outside a round it points you to the title menu.

A server’s operators can run a round by hand: /riftfall start sends the bots to the empty seats now, end ends the round, calm holds the bots back, and skip <seconds> runs the clock on, the Rift with it.

The other round modes: Emberhold and Hearthwar. More ways to play with others: Playing together.

Play nowOutlast the Rift. Free, in your browser.

Next: Riftways. All sections: the guides.