The MMO continues to attract new free players after the initial F2P launch.
Trion World’s RIFT had a recording-breaking week. The popular MMORPG smashed previous records from both the launch of the game’s first expansion, Storm Legion, and the free-to-play re-launch and gained over 200,000 new players in one week.
“We were ecstatic to see the numbers,” said Bill Fisher, RIFT’s creative director. “This is unprecedented. I’ve never seen anything like this before with a live game when there isn’t an expansion or other huge update. This was all the fans: we created a big party for them, and they showed up with bells on.”
RIFT experienced the highest single day gain in new users since the game’s launch more than 2 years ago. 25% more new users joined the game than when it first went free-to-play in June, one of the most successful transitions for a current-day MMO.
“This is all about gamers,” said Scott Hartsman, Trion World’s CEO. “Last week we re-launched RIFT on Steam and wanted to celebrate that milestone with players both old and new. We’ve been listening to what they want to see and do in the game and I think this week was a perfect example of giving fans what they want: a whole lot of fun.”
It wasn’t only new users coming to RIFT this weekend: 16% of players were returning players who had already been adventuring in Telara. “On Sunday alone, we outperformed Storm Legion’s launch by 219%,” said Hartsman. “We went back and checked the numbers twice. It was almost in the realm of too high to believe.”
RIFT’s 2.5 update, Song of Dreams, released on November 6th, and their Fae Yule celebration commences in December.
