Echoes of Madness Announced, Archonix Letter

RIFT Game Director Christopher “Archonix” Junior has written a letter reflecting on the 4th Anniversary of RIFT, the past few months and brief information on the year ahead. In particular, he talked about RIFT 3.2 and gave us the name of the update “Echoes of Madness”.

Briefly:

• RIFT 3.2 is called “Echoes of Madness”.
• Release is targeted for April. Note the word “targeted” so it might be pushed back.
• There’s upgrades to Instant Adventures, the Wardrobe system and Tier 2 raid “Return to Hammerknell”.
• Archonix also mentions “Our next set of raids is already in development for a future update and will feature new environments”, suggesting that the Lord Arak Raid won’t be the only raid that comes out when it does.
• Trion will also be releasing Planetouched Wilds in 2015 and they are experimenting with a brand new Calling.

Crystalline Raptor

Crystalline Raptor. Src: Trion Worlds

The letter also shows off this concept art of what looks to be a more ‘stoney/crystalline’ raptor-esque monster. The image filename is “crystalrex”.

Could this potentially be a hint at us going to the Plane of Earth in the next expansion? Or just a teaser to one of the mobs we’ll see in the Planetouched Wilds? In a previous livestream when talking about why they went to the Plane of Water, Trion noted possibilities for the Ascended going to other Planes and the idea of going to the Plane of Earth was briefly mentioned.

Since we have raptor pets and a ‘raptaroq’ mount (Strider mounts), the concept art above could simply be a new pet or mount skin. However, the faded-out small human in the bottom-left corner seems to suggest this is a colossus (zone event boss size) or perhaps a raid boss. Or maybe Trion could be going for a prehistoric/dinosaur theme and make the regular mobs that much bigger than the Ascended!

In any case, that’s another one to add to the growing collection of new concept art that have been popping up as of late.

Look forward to RIFT 3.2: Echoes of Madness some time in April! You can check out Archonix’ letter here!