Following the relaunch of Fractured Online’s early access and its first mega patch, Dynamight Studios has now released a full roadmap for the sandbox game – including a release window and gobs of “universe expansion” content.
“Fractured Online is officially going into full release in the early summer of 2024!” the team says. “The exact date will be announced soon, but we can already disclose it will be set around the very end of June or early July.”
The launch will come with a new server, owing to feedback from PvPers and guilds who are hungry for a clean slate following some of the hacks and economy issues during early access. Players who hit rank 30 on the original server will be getting a mount skin and free VIP time as compensation.
“At full release, we are planning to launch a new server (codename: Elysium) to go side by side with the current one (codename: Genesis). We know this is controversial, because most new players will go to Elysium by default, possibly leaving Genesis underpopulated if the influx isn’t strong enough.”
A second contentious announcement today reveals a major revamp of the game’s PvP rules. According to the devs, they didn’t keep their promise to allow players to fully opt out of PvP, and the opt-out system that exists sucks; the end result is that nobody but griefers is happy. The new system essentially flags “good” characters ungankable and seeks to move PvP into lawless zones, in exchange for better drops there. (They’re basically speed-running Ultima Online’s first few years of lessons, if you wondered. They’re on like stage 7 or something now.)
The studio also aims to normalize the game’s pricing structure as early access ends; the base package will now total out at €14.99, with bigger packages still going up to €299.99: “The pricing will be changed in a few days once the Store & VIP update goes live.”
In the meantime, Dynamight is working on a patch that touches on subscriptions, the token exchange, mount skins, armor recolors, in-game titles, and the system that governs abandoned parcels. Additional projects coming this summer include a tutorial revamp and new summoning system, followed by post-release seasons, alliances, city progression efforts, more playable races, followed by still more stuff in 2025: procedural dungeons, asteroid PvPvE – but not Tartaros, which is likely going to be scrapped or re-envisioned.
