Fractured is the first open-world sandbox MMORPG mixing action combat with fully interactable environments, appealing equally to lovers of competitive and cooperative gameplay. Jump right into the fray from day one. Defeat your enemies through your own skill and cleverness, not equipment or level.

Gather resources, craft, trade and venture into legendary travels as a solitary hero, or start a settlement with your guild and grow it into the next empire.

Fractured plans to bring together the best of Action RPGs and Sandbox MMOs, two genres that haven’t been successfully matched before. On one hand the game will feature a highly skill-based combat system that rewards tactics, reflexes and nimbleness of fingers; on the other hand, the user will be immersed in a fully player-driven economy, with an emphasis on realistic resource management, crafting and advanced world colonization features.

On top of that, Dynamight Studios wants to broaden its audience by allowing new players to be competitive from day one, by getting rid of the “grinding” mechanics that characterize the genre, and by implementing innovative rules on player interactions.

Fractured Online features three races: Humans, Wildfolk, and Demons. Each race has a different impact on game mechanics, such as which type of society players can live in, to the ways they interact with other players. Live within the peaceful Wildfolk community where cooperation and defensive gameplay shine or have free will while trying to follow the rules of a feudal society – like not breaking the law and “killing” other players - as a Human. For those that prefer hostility, blood, and terror, they can embrace their inner evil alignment by spawning as a Demon. Once a race is chosen, players can begin their quest for knowledge.

Combat also plays an integral part in Fractured Online as players will find it to be an adequate way to settle a dispute. Combat is fast-paced as fighters will learn to aim, dodge, and master over 400 abilities and 40 unique status effects. Whether abilities are used against various monsters in PvE battles or your fellow players in PvP combat is completely up to you.

Developer Dynamight Studios announced a Fractured Online free to play weekend before it returns to Steam Early Access.

Game servers have been opened again to all registered users – no founder pack needed!

The open weekend will be running until the night of Sunday, October 15. After that, access will be restricted to backers-only again.

Need to download the client? Click here!

FALL PLAYTEST EXTENDED

Wait – wasn’t the Fall Playtest meant to end for everyone on the 15th? Well, it seems the good news aren’t over yet: the Fall Playtest has been extended until Sunday, October 22!

The extension will give us more time to analyze player progression and get more bugs fixed. Launch on Steam Early Access will come very soon after – the official announcement is coming in a few days!

WHY FREE PLAY?

First of all, after multiple rounds of optimizations, we want to analyze again all the performance metrics to assess how our new backend behaves in a real heavy-load scenario.

Overall, we’ve been very happy with server performance during this test, and we’ve thus been able to focus on bug fixing, getting rid of 60+ issues in just a few days. It’s now time to get more critical player mass in the game to ensure everything is smooth once we are back on Steam!

Moreover, we want to give everyone the chance to playtest the game and decide whether they are interested in buying it once it’s back on Steam (or now, profiting from the 40% discount on access).

ROADMAP TO EARLY ACCESS

Our aim is to have a bug-free build with a solid end-game and long-term character progression, suitable to be used for a Steam Early Access relaunch without planned future wipes.

Most systems are already completed or close to completion, so worry not – we are expecting the relaunch to take place in 3-5 weeks (exact date to be announced).

Let’s dive into all the chances then, shall we?

ALCHEMICAL POTIONS

The last piece of alchemy – potions – are coming!

Potions can only be drunk while resting (more on resting later) and provide long-lasting bonuses ranging from attribute and modifier boosts to more unique effects.

The amount of potions you can drink is limited, since each active one increases toxicity, a new character bar. High levels of toxicity lead to a strong malus to health regeneration (based on current health) that won’t kill you but pretty much make you unable to engage in combat.

A couple upcoming talents can reduce toxicity generation, but only up to a point. Overall, you’re not meant to have more than 2-4 potions active at the same time, depending on their power (stronger ones are more toxic).

SIMPLE REST

You can now sit and rest anywhere, even without being close to a source of fire, just by pressing a new dedicated hotkey.

Resting this way gives a large boost to your health and mana regeneration and allows you to drink potions, but can’t be started in combat and is instantly interrupted when taking damage.

Resting in front of a campfire also allows you to memorize ability and talent presets, while resting in a home or tavern also allows you to cleanse the max health debuff generated by being knocked out. These mechanics are unchanged.

BYE CHARISMA, WELCOME WISDOM

Charisma, that damn attribute almost no one cared about, is officially gone, replaced by Wisdom (WIS), which increases Max Mana, Willpower, and the effectives of the spells of the following schools:

• Leadership
• Illusionism
• Abjuration
• Restoration
• Necromancy
• Part of Witchcraft

While the purpose of CHA was vague, WIS is definitely a support-oriented attribute.

Please note that no attribute now influences Luck, which we are considering removing from the game.

TALENT TREE COMPLETION

It’s been incomplete for a long time, and many of you hated that. With the switch from CHA to WIS, it’s time for us to get it done!

Here’s a table visualization of the talent tree:

As you can see, several talents have been added and many others moved around. A move that’s sure to shake the meta!

LEGENDS REWORK

The rework of legends is part our plan to add a ton of new mid to end-game PvE challenges to Fractured Online.

The current legends are only a handful, and they are all summoned the same way. We are adding plenty more, with different mechanics and power levels. They give gold, reagents and more as loot, but the real highlight are divine rewards (more on this later)!

Here’s a recap of the new types of legends (names are not final) and how many different ones we’ll have of each:

• Resident Legends (11). Spawn in fixed locations on the map. Once killed, they respawn after X minutes, like a normal monster. They give the lowest loot relative to their power level. Early-Mid game.
• Wandering Legends (11). Spawn as events in random locations within certain areas of the world. They give slightly better loot compared to resident legends (given the same power level). Early-Mid game.
• Summonable Legends (8). Can be summoned bringing reagents to their specific Altar in the world – same mechanic as the current legends. They give considerably more loot than the first two categories. Mid-End game.
• Ultimate Legends (6×2). Summoning requires activating Altars that generate waves of monsters that become stronger over time. You must kill these monsters quickly enough to progress and reach the point where the legends are spawned, which requires a substantinal group of players engaged in the activity. End-game.

ENCHANTING

Enchanting is back! An enchanted item gains the text “+1/2/3/4” after its name (e.g. “Longbow +2”) and increases its power according to the enchantment tier reached.

Each tier of enchantment raises the base damage of a weapon by 5% and the Physical Armor and Magical Armor of a piece of armor by 15%. This means that the base damage of a “Longbow +2” will be 6.6 x PER instead of 6.0 x PER (+10%), and the Physical Armor of a “Knight Armor +4” will be 1920 instead of 1200 (+60%).

Back when the system was first implemented, enchanting a piece of equipment used to cost gold (a pure gold sink, not transferred to the city). The gold cost is staying, although much lower, while the main requirement to enchant is now the Enchanting Dust. The amount of dust required to enchant an item depends on the type and tier of the item itself, and grows twice as large with each subsequent level (e.g. 1/2/4/8).

DIVINE REWARDS

Monsters no longer drop crafting recipes or orbs of proficiency directly. Instead, they now have a chance to drop divine rewards.

There are 5 different types of devine rewards (Valiant, Heroic, Fabled, Epic, Legendary), given by creatures of different CR (Challenge Rating). They all can be activated by right-clicking on them and will transform into either X gold, X enchanting dusts, a random recipe or a random orb (only 1 of the 4!). They can be traded like regular items.

Please note that divine rewards are not found in the corpses of fallen creaturse. Instead, they are sent directly to the player(s) with loot rights. For instance, if a monster has a 20% drop chance and 2 players have loot rights over it, each player has a 10% chance to obtain a reward.

REBALACING

We’ve done plenty of iterations here but we’re not done yet: the values of armor, weapons and most spells have been changed!

Overall, battles between end-game characters (i.e. those with leveled-up ability schools and advanced armor / weapons) should now last longer, the use of Tier 3 abilities is more expensive, and the damage output of abilities that also inflict CC is lower. This should open the meta to a lot of spells that were previously overlooked.

We are aware this likely won’t be the final balancing update, but we hope all future ones will be just minor corrections.

NPC CITY & TUTORIAL VISUALS

Last but not least in this plan, we are making the tutorial island and the 2 NPC cities in each continent much more interesting visually with the introduction of new decorative elements (including NPCs) and a more sophisticated layout for the cities themselves.

This one may seem irrelevant to you if you’ve already played and enjoyed Fractured Online, but don’t forget those places are the first ones a new players sees, and where he/she is likely to spend the first hour of gameplay. A strong visual impact goes a long way for new player retention!

In Fractured, choosing where to start your journey doesn’t mean following a different series of quests in an otherwise identical game. Join the first MMO where the race you belong to has an actual impact on game mechanics, from the type of society you live in to the ways you can interact with other players.

1. No human is born good or bad. Make your choice to uphold the law or break the established order. From a righteous governor to a cruel brigand, any path is open to you on planet Syndesia. Beware, though: you’ll be subject to the rules of a feudal society, so think beforehand to the consequences of your actions!
2. Living on a planet overwhelmed by giant vegetation, Beastmen have developed a deep connection to nature that endowed them with super-human resilience and keen survival skills. If you enjoy a cooperative and defensive gameplay in a peaceful community, look no further: Arboreus is your new home.
3. Banished to a hostile planet scarce in resources and filled with dangers, Demons possess an inner evil alignment that makes it natural for them to prey on each other and on other races. Make Tartaros your choice if you’re hungry for blood and dream of becoming a legendary ravager, assassin, or worse.

When players aren’t improving their abilities, they can choose to take part in Fractured Online’s robust player-driven economy. Forget finding a broadsword within the corpse of a spider. Every item in the game is crafted by players, so you better be nice to your local blacksmith or else you could end up fighting enemies off with a stick. Crafters, merchants, farmers, shepherds, miners, woodcutters, hunters, and scavengers all play an important role in the world. Exploit the uneven distribution of resources to get high profits when trading at faraway markets – but make sure you reach your destination alive!

Stake your claim to free land in the open world, secure it from your enemies and start your own cultivation and livestock business. Your products will never be in low demand since access to food and water is essential for survival, especially when venturing into long extra-planetary travels.

Wood, stone, metal, gems, herbs. Each planet is rich in some commodities and entirely lacks others. Explore the massive universe of Fractured to locate and harvest the rarest resource nodes in every region, but remember: locals might try to stop you as environment exploitation can damage a whole ecosystem!

Not all resources are fine with being harvested. Fur, hides, bones, carapaces and several other key crafting components can only be obtained through PVE combat. If you’re an avid monster hunter, Tartaros will be your dreamland… or perhaps your worst nightmare.

Tired of MMOs where the fun begins 80 hours after you’ve started playing? In Fractured, you’re free to join your friends in the most epic adventures right off the bat. Once the strengths and weaknesses of your character are set, you’ll be on a quest for knowledge and reputation, not attribute points!

Say goodbye to the conventional RPG level and skill systems you’ve seen way too often and embrace the power and flexibility of the Knowledge System. It’s about time you get rewarded for your courage and cleverness, not for the hours you’ve spent hunting zombies or punching a training dummy!

Take a moment to rest in front of a fire in your home, a tavern or your group’s encampment. Prepare a set of abilities to define your role in battle and assign your talent points to finely tune your build. Done? Time to enjoy the freedom of a MOBA with the persistence of a MMO!

Fractured is out to break the boundaries of the MMO genre by bringing the combat style you’ve loved in single-player Action RPGs into a complex sandbox universe. Learn to aim, dodge and master over 400 abilities and 40 unique status effects: only your skills and tactics will lead you to victory!

Stuck between a clan of bandits and a raging river? Animate the waters to protect you, or freeze them over to cross to safety – then melt them to drown your foes! In Fractured, the natural elements around you can always be exploited to defeat your enemies, even when all hope seems lost.

Looking for a new home? Find a suitable location and start a settlement with your guild. As a governor, you’ll be able to guide its development into a social, trading, or military hub. Beware, though: the rise to power of your city won’t go unnoticed, so get ready to protect it from hostile raids and sieges!

Fractured Online is coming to PC (Steam Early Access) soon.