DLCXbox · PC · PlayStation

The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror

Exor Studios · Survival, ARPG, Strategy, Action

Overview

Explore an entirely new area of Galatea 37 in this Story Campaign expansion for The Riftbreaker. Catalog new species. Craft new and unique weapons. Fight hordes of aliens unlike anything you've seen before.

We came to this world to claim it for the benefit of our kind. However, we were not the first ones to do so. The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror allows you to explore the previously unknown regions of Galatea 37, which bore witness to cataclysmic events thousands of years ago. This World Expansion introduces new gameplay mechanics and dozens of new items and technologies. Use them to your advantage to survive against an ancient threat.

About The Expansion:

Metal Terror is the first World Expansion for The Riftbreaker, introducing an entirely new part of the Story Campaign, playing out in a previously unexplored biome. A unique astronomical event takes place during Ashley’s Riftbreaking mission. Its aftermath reveals that Galatea 37 was hiding a dark secret the whole time. Driven by your scientific curiosity, explore the previously hidden corners of the planet. Study the new ecosystem. Find useful resources and adapt your technology to make use of them. Face new enemies, both natural and unnatural.

Features:

Discover a new branch of the Story Campaign, that will take you on a journey into the unknown.

Establish an Outpost in a brand-new area of the planet - if you dare.

Scan, analyze, and catalog the unique fauna and flora of the new biome.

Face several new enemy species, each posing a different kind of challenge.

Research new additions to the technology tree, utilizing the curiosities you discover in the new biome: buildings, weapons, and equipment.

Solve the mystery that remained hidden for millennia.

Contents of this Expansion:

The Story portion of this Expansion is integrated with the Main Campaign from the base edition of The Riftbreaker. The new branch and the contents of the expansion will unlock as you progress through the game. If you have previously completed The Riftbreaker Story Campaign, you can continue your adventure where you left off. The additional part of the Story will unlock immediately, giving you the option to explore the new part of the world.

From the game's Steam store page.

THE GAMEQ VERDICT174 reviews analyzed

What players are actually saying

1. Summary

Metal Terror is a side questline for The Riftbreaker that sends players into the Metallic Valley, a new biome of liquid metal and ancient alien machines, with new enemies, weapons, Morphium towers and power plants. The expansion's own reviews are clearly positive. Players praise the look and mood of the biome and the new enemies that make them rethink their defenses, and some enjoyed spotting what reviewers describe as a tie-in to EXOR's earlier game X-Morph: Defense. A common line among recommenders is that it is "more Riftbreaker" and worth buying if you already like the base game.

Length, depth and stability are where it loses people. Several reviewers, recommenders among them, call it short for its price, with completion times they report between about four and ten hours, and a few advise waiting for a sale. Opinion on the story is divided: some enjoy the side plot, while others find it forgettable and the ending flat, with a final choice that changes little and no boss fight. The new Morphium tech is fun inside the biome and, by several accounts, rarely worth using outside it. Technical trouble accounts for 19 of the 33 negative reviews, from crashes and a DLC that never starts to quest scripts that stop handing out the next mission.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

The Metallic Valley biome and its atmosphereHigh

Reviewers praise the new biome often. They call it "Dope biome", "Great biome" and "A neat new environment to explore", and one writes that "the vibes were immaculate and you really get the sense of wonder from this ancient biomechanical tech." Another calls it "my favorite biome for combat by far." Players like that it plays differently: no water, mud or sunlight, so power and defenses have to be built around Morphium or fusion, and one reviewer enjoyed "having to come up with different ways to manage power and defenses." Not everyone was taken with it. One says the "new biome don't feel much different", and one 2026 reviewer felt it was "more of the base game with an uglier skin on it."

New enemies that change how you fightMedium

Enemy designs often come up in the same breath as the biome. Reviewers describe a mix of new creatures and some recolors, with ancient machine constructs and flying enemies that "can flank your base over cliffs, forcing you to rethink your strategies." Some say these enemies need different damage types and stronger weapons than the main campaign, and one calls this "the toughest DLC out of all of them." A couple of reviewers wished these enemies also appeared in other biomes during the main campaign.

The X-Morph: Defense crossoverMedium

Several reviewers enjoyed realizing that the DLC's alien entity, its metal-spreading towers and its energy barriers come, as they describe it, from EXOR's previous tower defense game. One writes that "this whole DLC is an reference to the studio's previous game, X-Morph." Others call it a "Cool crossover with their other game" and "a great nod to a CERTAIN game from the same developpers". A couple of them praise the older game as well, and a couple say the story works without having played it.

Music and soundtrackLow

A handful of reviewers praise the reworked metallic soundtrack: "The music is incredible", "the soundtrack is banger too", and "the modified soundtrack to match the metallic theme works really well."

Free update content that came with itLow

Some reviewers counted the free patch they say shipped alongside the DLC in its favor. By their account it brought quality-of-life changes to building and balance fixes, and let survival mode players use the new tech without buying the DLC. One wrote that it "came with more QOL and optimization for everyone."

Where players are split

Value for the price and lengthHigh

Price and length come up often, and opinion splits. Some recommenders call it fair: "For $10 you get new bio, several maps, quests, QoL, items and more...This is the way DLC should be." Others recommend it while saying it is short. Reported completion times range from "half an afternoon" for a player who had already finished the main game, through four, five and six hours, up to eight to ten hours on Brutal. One review that recommends it still says "I think that it is more of a $5 DLC." Several reviewers suggest buying it on sale or in a bundle, and one negative review says it is "too small for the price" with "very few missions." A recurring condition is liking the base game: if you want more of it, these reviewers say, it is worth it.

The side story and how it fits the campaignHigh

Fans call the story an "interesting story", "a great story" and "a cool side story", and like the reveal connecting it to X-Morph. Others call it "okish", "underwhelming" or "forgettable", and some complain that it sits apart from the main plot: "side missions with no impact on the existing story." Reviewers who discuss pacing suggest weaving it into a normal campaign: one recommends "starting a new campaign, as the DLC is best played interweaved into your normal campaign progression." A couple of positive reviewers dislike the story, or how loosely it connects to the main plot, and enjoyed the biome and missions anyway.

Morphium and the new techMedium

Morphium, the new liquid resource, gets both praise and shrugs. Supporters like towers that cost no AI cores, shield nearby buildings and can be built on liquid, plus cheap power and the energy walls. One reviewer argues that "if you can be bothered to set up good liquid compression systems (it really doesn't take long), the new turret and power generator are amazing additions to your HQ defences." Critics point out that Morphium only exists in this biome and that the power plant arrives after fusion has made it obsolete, leaving the tech "pretty useless otherwise". One sums it up: "Morphium is cool idea with lots of potential but sadly not very good in execution". The weapons get mixed notes too: the lightning gun and the melee weapon have fans, while one reviewer calls the laser sword "a reskinned normal sword".

DifficultyLow

How hard it feels depends on when players started it. Those who arrived with late-game gear found it easy: "most of it is mind-numbingly easy with lategame gear and the rewards are useless once you have Nuclear/Fusion anyways." Others found the enemies "challenging without being overwhelming" or warn that "you may need tier 3 or above weapon." A couple of reviewers advise starting it early in a campaign.

How it ranks against the other DLCsLow

Among reviewers who compare it with the later expansions, most put this one ahead, calling it "The best DLC for The Riftbreaker" and advising, if you get only one, to "skip the other 2 and get this one." One reviewer calls it the weakest of the three, and another found it as boring as the other DLC.

What frustrates players

Bugs that block progress or stop the DLC startingMedium

Technical problems are the main reason for negative reviews. Some players could not get the DLC to begin at all ("DLC doesn't start", "I CANNOT GET IT TO ACTIVATE"). Others hit quest scripts that stall: "each time the script breaks after a mission and never gives the next", a mission to power an alien core that would not accept energy, and a "final task wont show up sometimes making it un-compleatable". A few report crashes or heavy stuttering that began once the DLC was installed, and one couldn't play it on GeForce Now. Most of these reports date from the first months after launch, and one reviewer that July said the early bugs were "mostly fixed by now". Reports of broken quests and crashes still appear in 2025, though.

Repetitive missions and waiting on attack timersMedium

Some reviewers, mostly negative ones, describe the missions as the base game's routine with little new. One says "It's basically shoot the same turret stronghold for 5 times"; another found the DLC "mainly consisted of repeatedly waiting on 5 minute attack timers"; a third says that in single player there is "too much grinding" building large structures with heavy resource costs. Even some positive reviews note that it takes "0 risk" with gameplay and is "just more riftbreaker, without any groundbreaking changes."

An ending that falls flatLow

Several players, some of them recommenders, wanted a stronger finish. They missed a final boss ("only a dialogue with a certain entity") and felt the final decision mattered little: "it all boiled down to a choice with no real choice." Others wished the ending choice unlocked different tech or had "a little more significance."

Not knowing how to start itLow

The questline triggers through an event during a normal campaign, with no menu entry, and some buyers could not find it. One describes searching the start screen, old saves and a new campaign: "no DLC on start screen." A positive reviewer also noted "there's no button to launch the DLC quest" and disagreed with that design.

Unskippable dialogueLow

A few players found the talk between Ashley and Mr. Riggs grating and wanted to skip it: "you can't skip the dialog between MC and its robot companion." Another review simply says "Fun... but please... stop...talking..."

Base game complaints posted on the DLC pageLow

Some thumbs-down target The Riftbreaker as a whole: long-standing bugs, performance, and tower mods that seemed to have no effect. In 2025, one reviewer wrote that the boss loot drops added in the 2.0 update made crafting pointless, since a better version of any researched weapon or module drops from a boss. One co-op player reported that both host and client need the DLC and that DLC buildings were left on the map in a vanilla game.

3. The player conversation

Most reviews are warm, and many are brief. A large share are one-liners such as "Great DLC" or "Worth it", and the longer ones tend to be balanced: they list the new content, praise the biome and enemies, then add a caveat about length, price or the story. Reviewers who came to it after finishing the main game, or with late-game gear, are the ones calling it short and easy, while those who advise playing it within a campaign say it fits better that way. Thumbs-down reviews fall into two separate camps. One group hit bugs that stopped the questline or the DLC itself. The other found the content repetitive or thin for its price. Very few negative reviews criticize the biome or the enemies.

Launch week was the most enthusiastic stretch, at 95% positive (35 of 37). The next week fell to 56% (5 of 9), with complaints from a buyer who couldn't find how to start the DLC, one who couldn't run it on GeForce Now and one whose tower mods had no effect. After launch week, 77% of reviews recommend it (106 of 137). Later reviewers often compare Metal Terror with the two expansions that followed, and most of those comparisons favor it.

4. What the developers could do

Fix the questline blockers and activation failures. Bugs that stop the DLC starting or leave a mission without its next objective are the most common reason for a thumbs-down, and reports of them continued after launch.
Make the DLC's starting point visible. Some buyers could not tell whether they owned working content because the questline begins through an in-campaign event with no menu entry or clear prompt.
Vary the mission objectives. Players who disliked it describe attacking the same turret strongholds repeatedly and waiting on five-minute attack timers, while one fan called an almost all-liquid mission a refreshing change.
Give the ending more weight. Reviewers wanted a final boss and a choice whose outcome changes the result or the rewards, instead of an ending that resolves the same way either way.
Make Morphium tech worth using outside the biome. Players like the AI-core-free shield towers in principle but say the resource is confined to one region and the power plant is obsolete by the time they unlock it.
Scale the difficulty to late-game gear. Players who arrived with endgame weapons found it "mind-numbingly easy", so scaling enemies to the player's tech level (or clearly recommending an early start) would keep it challenging.
Let players skip dialogue. A few reviewers found the companion talk and an unskippable cutscene grating and wanted a way past them.
Add more missions or price the expansion to its length. Several reviewers suggest waiting for a sale because four to ten hours felt short for the price.