Fracture - First Look Preview

There's more to LucasArts brands than Indiana Jones and Star Wars you know...don't laugh, we're being serious. There's Thrillville, and back in the day, Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, and The Dig too...and...erm...er...ok, we give up. For much of its existence, the publisher has largely relied on its two heavyweight IPs to deliver success, but a change in strategy now has LucasArts spending time to produce original brands. Besides Frontier Developments' theme park sim/mini-game title, LucasArts has also turned its attention to the future - about 150 years in the future to be more precise - and hooked up with Day 1 Studios to produce Fracture.

Scheduled for launch on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in Summer 2008, Fracture takes players to a 'plausible future conflict' where an ecologically devastated United States of America is split into two regions: the Republic of Pacifica, and the Atlantic Alliance. In a state of conflict due to their individual moral leanings towards cybernetics and gene therapy, gamers follow Mason Briggs, a soldier found and raised by Atlantic Alliance military - the side more in love with cybernetic enhancements.

Deforming the world

Whether the action will take place entirely in the West Coast is currently unclear, but the section of gameplay demoed by LucasArts was all set in San Francisco Bay. With the Golden Gate Bridge set in the background and bucket loads of depth of field adding to the epic scale, Briggs finds himself in the middle of the Bay, now little more than a dust bowl thanks to extreme climate change.

A third-person shooter packed with fire-fights, explosions, and enough seismic activity to make the entire Earth change axis, Fracture has been built from the ground up with Day 1 Studios' proprietary engine. It seems that the weapons of the future are a tad more advanced than what we're used to, as both factions can unleash so-called 'Tectonic Weaponry' to mould the environments around them. Christened 'Terrain Deformation', this devastating weaponry can create pillars of rock to jump from the ground, or form natural cover from attack. Access to previously unreachable areas or the ability to crater the ground can also enable Briggs to 'gopher' underneath impenetrable walls and barriers; the use of Vortex Grenades can even pull loose objects (and people) into a void, making areas swarming with enemies safe to cross. There's even going to be a Boulder Gun that pulls in loose dirt and rock, transforming it into an explosive ball that can get launched at enemies. If there's one thing that Fracture has going for it, it's the original weaponry, which makes your average Assault Rifle and sidearm pretty redundant, and has a greater effect on the environment than just causing a few bullet hold decals to appear on the side of walls. The level of physics-driven motion is also pretty high, so it'll be interesting to see how well the proprietary engine performs.

Hair-line Fracture

The primary concern for Fracture has to be how well implemented terrain deformation will actually be during the course of the game. For instance, is the ability to create cover from the very Earth developed into key solutions for puzzle solving and exploration, or is it merely a superficial game mechanic used to impress both gamers both visually and technically? Hopefully clever level design has been one of the top priorities at Day 1 Studios during development, though the ability to warp the ground in real-time obviously has its technical challenges to overcome. One element of course rests on enemy AI, which has to be able to cope with the unpredictable changes of terrain at any point in the battle, leaving Day 1 Studios' programmers having to develop a strong AI system that reacts on the fly.

'Gameplay Nuance of the Year 2007', two-player co-operative mode, has also been confirmed for Fracture, though once again we can only hope that this will open the experience to true co-op gameplay and puzzle-solving, and not just drop a Mason Briggs clone onto the battlefield alongside the original. Day 1 Studios is also working on 16-player online gameplay over Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, and whilst we are already anticipating their own takes on Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, we're also looking forward to seeing some original gametypes that take advantage of Terrain Deformation too...hopefully, at least.