Destructible game, Fracture, announced for 2008
Fracture is the new collaboration between publisher, LucasArts, and developer Day 1 Studios. To be released in mid-2008 for the PS3 and 360, the third-person shooter will rely on destructible environments as a key component of the gameplay. We've heard that promise before, but like a bass noticing a Shad Rap, the game's potential is high enough for us to follow this lure to the boat.
It's the year 2161, and the United States has been divided by its flooded Mississippi River. The East is full of cybernetically enhanced humans, while the West is populated with powerful mutants aided by genetic engineering. The freaks can't get along, and this premise -- which hopefully plays out better than it sounds -- incites a world war based in America. (We look forward to the "K" broadcasters finally settling their feud with the "W" stations.)
[Update: Be sure to check out our impressions of the title as well.]
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(Aside: Some of the marketing materials explain why the game's future scenario is topical, such as tying current environmental issues to Fracture's decimated landscape. Our favorite connection mirrors current stem-cell debate and research to the mutated lives of the western people.)
Fracture claims to rely on destructible -- and constructible -- environments. In addition to other explosive moves, players will blast holes under walls and create windstorms of boulders and debris. But players will also use certain weapons to shape the ground; LucasArts says that one example is to blast the earth upward in order to reach a higher area.
Red Faction, Black, and other titles haven't fulfilled our expectations for destructible shooters. (Imagine that, games that don't meet their hype.) But with Battlefield: Bad Company, Army of Two, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and others, we're glad that developers keep trying. We'll take a closer look at Fracture and report back on our initial impressions of its destructible gameplay.
