Rifts: Promise of Power
| Developer | Palladium Books (USA) |
| Publisher | Nokia |
| Released | 2005-10 |
| Status | Released |
| Genre | RPG |
| Multiplayer | Bluetooth (2 players), N-Gage Arena |
| Product code | 6R49 |
A tactical RPG developed by Backbone Entertainment and published exclusively for the N-Gage in 2005, based on Palladium Books' long-running post-apocalyptic tabletop roleplaying game Rifts. Set on a far-future Earth torn apart by dimensional rifts, players assemble a party from over 12 character classes — including the armoured Glitter Boy, the psychic Mind Melter, and the chemically enhanced Juicer — and traverse locations across North America, Scotland, China, and the New German Republic in a blend of real-time exploration and turn-based combat.
Rifts creator Kevin Siembieda had refused all video game licensing requests for 14 years before agreeing to work with Nokia's producer Shane Neville on this adaptation, co-developing it to ensure fidelity to the pen-and-paper source material. The game was a critical success: it won GameSpot's E3 2005 Editor's Choice, and the editors of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World, 1UP.com, and Official US PlayStation Magazine collectively voted it Best Mobile Game of 2005. Metacritic aggregated it at 75/100. The game shipped in Europe on 27 October 2005 and in North America on 28 November 2005 — late enough that Nokia's announcement of the N-Gage platform's discontinuation effectively buried it commercially. Its source code was subsequently leaked and compiled by the N-Gage homebrew community. In 2025 Palladium Books launched a BackerKit crowdfunding campaign to remaster it as Rifts: Promise of Power Reforged for PC, though the campaign did not reach its funding goal.
Gameplay
- Rifts official website launches News 2005-04
- Rifts: All About N-Gage Sit Down With the Creator, Designer and Producer of this eagerly awaited RPG Feature 2005-05
- Rifts On Record: We Interview the N-Gage Team Behind The RPG News 2005-05
- Mile High Pinball and Rifts Fanpacks News 2005-09
- N-Gage Demo for Rifts: Promise of Power now Available News 2005-10
- Rifts: Promise of Power Reviewed. Probably The Best N-Gage Yet News 2005-11
| GameSpy | 4/5 |
| GameDaily | 3.5/5 |
| Jeuxvideo.com | 9/20 |
| Metacritic | 75/100 |
| All About Symbian | 91% |
- Wikipedia
- MobyGames
- GameFAQs
- Nokia N-Gage.com (Wayback Machine)
- backerkit.com
- ngage.fandom.com
- Original description from All About N-Gage
ROM preserved. SOURCE CODE LEAKED and successfully compiled as part of the N-Gage SDK project. A GitHub toolchain exists to build a DRM-free version (github.com/mupfdev/Rifts). Most notable N-Gage game for source code preservation. Licensed from Palladium Books' Rifts RPG.
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