History VideoGame / TheRiftbreaker

** One of the four available melee weapons is a giant spear that deals cold damage, one of only three weapons in the game to do so. Most players still ignore it in favor of the PowerFist or [[DropTheHammer the hammer]] because of its mediocre performance overall.

* DropTheHammer: A ''massive'' warhammer can be unlocked, which is slow to swing, but just hitting the ''ground'' deals enormous damage in a wide area and flattens flora and fauna with equal ease.

A DLC, ''Metal Terror'', was released on July 2022. It features a new biome featuring bio-mechanical flora and fauna and deals with a plot involving an ancient alien civilization that attempted to colonize Galatea 37.

** The Heavy Artillery turret shoots extremely powerful miniature nuclear warheads over vast distances. It can wipe out whole waves of aliens in a single shot, but it needs supercharged plasma to operate, which means it requires an entire, very expensive production chain setup nearby to keep it active. You could centralize this setup and run pipes all over the map instead, but this comes with its own downsides. It's generally much more efficient to just build one or two normal artillery turrets on the frontline.

* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: If Mr. Riggs loses all his health, he merely drops a currently equipped weapon and respawns 5 seconds at the HQ/Outpost.

* Infinity+1Sword: Chainsaws deal EXTREME DPS with whatever enemy they make contact with. If that wasn't enough, they also stunlock whatever they hit into oblivion. This means that you can walk up to any enemy that isn't outright immune to physical damage, and tear it to pieces in record time.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Heavy Artillery turret shoots extremely powerful miniature nuclear warheads over vast distances. It can wipe out whole waves of aliens in a single shot, but it needs supercharged plasma to operate, which means it requires an entire, very expensive production chain setup nearby to keep it active. You could centralize this setup and run pipes all over the map instead, but this comes with its own downsides. It's generally much more efficient to just build one or two normal artillery turrets on the frontline.

* BladeOnAStick: One of the four available melee weapons is a giant spear that deals cold damage, one of only three weapons in the game to do so. Most players still ignore it in favor of the PowerFist or [[DropTheHammer the hammer]] because of its mediocre performance overall.

* ILoveNuclearPower: Researching uranium handling unlocks the construction of nuclear power plants, one of the most efficient power sources in the game. They require a constant supply of refined uranium and water, though, so they usually can't be set up just anywhere you'd like.

** With ''Riftbreaker'' being part TowerDefense game, this was to be expected. The game periodically spawns increasingly large and powerful waves of attacking alien hordes that you need to fend off lest they overrun your bases. Unsurprisingly, the campaign's FinalBattle takes it UpToEleven.

* TeleportersAndTransporters: Insta-travel portal technology forms an important part of the game's story and gameplay. The player can plonk down fast-travel portals pretty much anywhere they want to quickly move around the map or between bases (or even within the same base), and constructing a long-range two-way portal that links Galatea 37 with Earth is the whole point of the campaign.

* AntiFustrationFeatures: Whenever you teleport to a Rift Portal, Outpost, or your Headquarters, you will leave behind a green rift that allows you to teleport back once you have concluded business on the other side. This allows you to resume exploration instead of having to run all the way back to where you were.

* UniversalAmmunition: Averted. Both your mech and your defensive towers have separate pools of ammo, themselves divided into separate types such as low- or high-caliber bullets, energy cells, liquid fuel, and explosives, depending on the weapon.

* DualWielding: Mr. Riggs can switch freely between up to three sets of weapons, all of which can be mixed and matched as the player desires, which includes dual-wielding identical weapons.

** Nothing in-game ever mentions that it is possible to get rid of the levitating magnetic rocks in the volcanic biome, let alone how to go about it (with acid weaponry, which in itself is easy to never unlock in the first place).

* ShoutOut: The Queen Bee achievement, awarded for having 50 drones active simultaneously, is subtitled "[[VideoGame/HeartOfTheSwarm I am the swarm]]".

* HoldTheLine: With ''Riftbreaker'' being part TowerDefense game, this was to be expected. The game periodically spawns increasingly large and powerful waves of attacking alien hordes that you need to fend off lest they overrun your bases. Unsurprisingly, the campaign's FinalBattle takes it UpToEleven.

** Building construction requires carbonium, ironium, cobalt, titanium, palladium and uranium. All of these can be mined from resource veins on the map. The latter three are mostly used for late-game technologies and can only be found on separate maps when playing Campaign mode. They can, however, be farmed via the cultivator if you're sufficiently familiar with the right plant species. In Survival mode they're all found on the main map.

** Building construction requires carbonium, ironium, cobalt, titanium, palladium and uranium. All of these can be mined from resource veins on the map. The latter three are mostly used for late-game technologies and can only be found on separate maps when playing Campaign mode. They can, however, be farmed via the cultivator if you're sufficient familiar with the right plant species. In Survival mode they're all found on the main map.

* KillItWithFire: Flamethrowers are available in mobile versions for Mr. Riggs or turret-mounted for base defense. One of the upgrades to the Dash ability also sets the ground behind the mecha on fire, much to the detriment of any alien that runs into the flames. Some advanced enemies and of course most of the critters native to the volcanic biome are at least resistant to fire damage, if not outright immune, but there're enough flammable enemy types left that it remains a very powerful weapon regardless.

* FrickinLaserBeams: Laser weaponry can be unlocked by progressing through the alien research tree. It's particularly strong against powerful individual targets.

* BizarreAlienBiology: Basically all of the enemies you face, with the most normal among them being horse-sized pack hunters that come by the dozen at a minimum and build their nests inside gigantic bloated sacks that are implied to be a separate, symbiotic species. From there you move on to arachnids with corrosive SuperSpit, giants made of rock and metal, 50-foot-tall striders with a hive mind of {{AttackDrone}}s, and snails that launch their own regenerating shells as artillery payloads, which itself contains their eggs.

* DroneDeployer: Available in civilian and military versions. The former is used in automated agriculture, the latter in the form of turrets that either lay minefields over time or just attack any enemy in range with small [[AttackDrone Attack Drones.]]