RiftMode
I can feel it when my world starts to tip. Long before it actually breaks and dissipates, there is a feeling of pressure behind my eyes. Everything seems to be prickling at the edges, and it all takes on a slightly shimmering quality, like the ground is tilting and I am walking down the street in the full force of a very hot summer’s day. I try to breathe the air behind the Circle. I can feel it pressing down upon me. Reality begins to fracture. The familiar shapes of the characters are molded and stretched in strange and unfamiliar ways. One of them calls my name, and the sound of them is all warped and stretched and wispy. It’s all so familiar, and yet, somehow so strange. I follow them through the tilting, shifting landscape of the world as it is falling apart around me. Each step I take causes the ground to shudder and tremble beneath my feet. The colors all around me are bleeding and leaking into one another, creating new and strange shades that seem to pulse and thrum with raw emotion. Fear is a deep, rich violet. Longing is a pale, watery gold. Determination is a searing, burning crimson. I breathe in deeply. The air that fills my lungs is heavy with a sense of nostalgia. It’s all squeezing and pressing against my heart and feels almost painful. I take another step, the ground shuddering and rippling beneath my feet once more. The surface of the wall I’m using to support myself is slick and probing. It ripples and wobbles beneath my fingertips. The other characters are drawing close, their faces set in stern, anxious lines. They’re all so very tense. I can see it written across their faces. I can see the fear and the tension in their eyes. I can even see the way their hands are shaking ever so slightly as they try to steady themselves. We’re all tied together in our own unique way. We’re bound by the choices we have made along the way. By the consequences of said actions. By our shared and frantic fears. The weight of all that is pressed heavily upon my shoulders. It presses down upon me, until I’m forced to my knees by the crushing, oppressive burden of it all. And yet… And yet I manage to push myself up once more. My grip on the wall is tenuous at best, but I manage to keep myself upright. There’s a look to the other characters. A look of hope, perhaps. Of expectation, even. The weight of all that is to come is crushing, yes, but I’ll not be defeated by it, not yet, not here. And I look to them for guidance and support. I take another breath, the air around me shifting and rippling in unfamiliar and unexplored ways. It’s all so very fragile, and I feel a sense of trepidation, of anxiety as I attempt to grasp the full and fair weight of what’s before me. But I do my best to steer myself for what’s to come. To ready myself for whatever it is that’s waiting for me on the other side of the distorting fractures in my reality. And I take a step forward.
Instead of shattering, the world’s collapse sighs. A deeply painful and impossibly vast sound. As the ground opens up before me like a curtain being pulled back, I see layer upon layer of memories and of possibilities. The characters from the novel proceed, their bodies bending in upon themselves as they make their way through the brilliant, pulsating cracks in the earth. Slowly and with a deeply respectful air, as if they realize that every step they take changes reality for me as well as for themselves. I follow after them, the ground under my feet shifting and rippling as I proceed. Colours spread across the fractured horizon of the world before me. The air fills with the scent of burning cedar and with something else, sweet, and I am unable to place it. It is as if I have been transported back to my childhood, and that the memories of that time have been transformed into something palpable. As I move through this world that is falling apart, the further I go into it, the more scattered my thoughts become. But I continue on, because I have the feeling that there is some truth here that I have not yet grasped, and that this reality that is falling apart includes the stories of all the characters that I have encountered here. Their stories and my own are inextricably intertwined as a tapestry of choices, of results, and of mild revelations. The unknown is no longer something to be feared. It promises something. The further I proceed into the heart of the fracture, the more I am able to see the numerous futures that lie before me. Each of them contains a version of myself. And each of these versions was created by a different decision on my part. By different fears that I have. By different hopes that I have. The air before me shimmers and seems to solidify into something that I can reach out and touch. It surrounds my hand in much the same way that a living thing would. The other characters from the novel halt in their tracks. They turn to me, and their eyes follow the line of my gaze up to the brilliant, shimmering horizon before us. They wait. But not for answers. They wait for me. For my courage. A nod from me is all the encouragement that they require. Together we proceed through the brilliant, shining arch of the fractured world. Light envelops me. It is warm and blindingly bright. It smells of rain on stone and of distant laughter. For a moment I feel weightless, suspended between two different worlds: the one that has just been left behind, and the one that awaits me in this strange and wondrous place. And then the world solidifies around me once more. It takes on a new shape, and it hums with a gentle, peaceful sound. The fracture has not closed up. Instead, it has become a doorway. And I am standing before it.
Features include:
- The Infernal Seal – Gather the lost, magical pages of the Divine Comedy to keep the gates of Hell sealed.
- Dual-Reality Exploration – Alternate between a melancholic Italian manor and “The Dive,” a surreal dimension molded by the psyche.
- Thematic Puzzles – Decipher complex environmental riddles tied to Gabriele’s trauma and the Alighieri legacy.
- A Reimagined Classic – A dark, introspective twist on Dante’s masterpiece, transforming epic poetry into a dreamlike thriller.
How does inherited guilt shape the path ahead? What awakens when the barrier between worlds begins to fade? Why do two realities bleed together at this moment in the descent? Find out with The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline, out now for PC via the Epic Games Store & Steam, PS5 on the PlayStation Store, and Xbox Series X|S on the Microsoft Store.
Enjoy the trailer — until the Rift opens again, know that you’re appreciated.
