"Either Earth was wrong, or they lied…

As ex-black marketeer Jacob Viscero, stowaway aboard the Crusader, your 15-year journey has just been completed. Now aboard your temporary home, the space station Deliverance, the sensor data has been analyzed: The habitable world that was your destination does not exist.

To make matters worse, an alien race shows up through a wormhole, or Rift, wreaking havoc on the struggling colony. Jacob must take command and guide the fleet though a series of Rifts, doing battle along the way with other humans and two space-born alien races unlike anything yet seen in a 3D space game."

Thus spake the creators of Real Time Strategy game, The Rift: James Thrush (Producer, Development Lead), Dustin Wood (Test Lead, 3D Artist), Jeff House (3D Artist) and Chris Overstreet (Music and Sound Designer), collectively known as ThrushWave Technology. The Seattle based developers are riding the current retro trend of small independent teams driven by passion and talent. A publishing deal will have to come later.

Striving to reinvent (or at least reinvigorate) the RTS genre by adding new depth and detail, both in real-time 3D graphics and RTS gameplay, ThrushWave have their work cut out for them. While they do battle with bump mapping limitations and the up- and down-side of individual pilots having their own unique character attributes, readers can follow along by catching the ThrushWave website developer journal updates and FAQ section. This is potentially an interesting process to follow as the team's aspirations collide with reality and critical decisions are made. Though it is well known that a bad technical or creative choice now can doom a project down the line, rarely are these decisions revealed in real time.

There is also a Beta Tester program (currently full but expected to re-open) and a gamer feedback section where the developers pose questions to their potential customers about specific features and trade offs. The Rift is expected to release in the third quarter of 1999. Take a look:

Developed By: Thrushwave
Published By: N/A
3D Card Support: Yes
Multiplayer Support: Yes
Web Site: http://www.thruswave.com
E.T.A: Q3 99

Another The Rift Glimpse