It appears the long-running Fractured drama might truly be over as Dynamight Studios is getting back to its test plans.
Readers will recall that Fractured is a Kickstarted sandbox that lingered in development a few years before Gamigo took over publishing, pushing the game to an early access launch in the fall of 2022, which was almost immediately followed by layoffs and closures at Gamigo itself and led to the abrupt closure of Fractured’s testing phase – and numerous accusations over funding and potential legal action. All of that was finally cleaned up in April, when Gamigo and Dynamight confirmed their split and Dynamight took over publishing once again. Now, the indie team is finally getting back to testing its new and improved mechanics.
“Fractured Online will be back for a time-limited test, starting on Thursday, June 22, at 4pm CEST (10am EDT)! The test will run until Sunday, July 2, and access will be granted to all owners of a Founder Pack. […] Its purpose is to get feedback on the ton of new features and changes and test the stability of our new backend. This is not the ‘full’ relaunch (yet). Like all time-limited tests, it will be followed by a full world and character wipe.”
There are a few caveats here; you’ll need the new launcher, which isn’t downloadable yet, and you’ll need to swap your account over from Steam or Gamigo to keep it – but that does mean early access gamers aren’t being hoodwinked out of their original buy-in. It’s not clear whether it’ll ever be back on Steam early access, but that’s what the account migration system is for.
The test build tackles mechanics like character progression, ability leveling, new abilities, crafting, the tutorial, tooltips, animations, effects, mobs, and even the original continent, which is now gone entirely.
“After reviewing user feedback, following up on it and further tuning client and server performance (if needed), Fractured Online will be back 24/7, with no more wipes planned,” the team says. “That’s going to be the proper relaunch!”
