Last year, Fractured Online revealed that they had split from publisher Gamigo, after Gamigo decided to shut down the majority of the MMO titles they published. This meant that Fractured would either need to locate a new publisher, or self-publish, which comes with a lot of hurdles itself.

As of June 22nd, the studio behind Fractured re-opened the servers for Kickstarter backers, but was met with immediate login issues, prompting them to suspend logins entirely for an undisclosed length of time. This comes after they’ve run several successful test phases in the past.
Fractured is definitely struggling now that they’ve lost Gamigo as a backer. But hopefully they can turn things around before their remaining pool of fans dry up and move on.

It’s always exciting playing a new MMO for the first time, especially at launch.
There are thousands, tens of thousands of players all running around with no idea what to do, or where to go, sharing in your achievements and your frustrations.
Yet despite this, we’re all aware we have a purpose, we have direction. Because while MMOs are large, open and provide us a lot of freedom, they all still follow the same formula: “Level, quest, and grind to endgame.” That’s where the game starts.
This is where Fractured advertised that it was different. This was a sandbox world with infinite freedom – no singular, linear path to follow. Full of experiences that were influenced by you. Not the developers. And that is unfortunately also where this game fell short.

Fractured Online is a dynamic, open-world top-down isometric sandbox MMORPG that was announced back in 2017. In June 2018, they opened a Kickstarter to aid in the development of the title and just barely made what they were asking for: A little over $100,000 USD.
Sandbox MMOs are very different to your traditional MMOs. They focus on allowing players to mold their own experiences through their actions, exploring the world at their own pace, learning and upgrading the abilities you want.
As opposed to moving through regions in a linear fashion, from quest hub to quest hub, following the same route everyone else has taken, learning the same skills every other play has learned. Offering nothing thousands of other players haven’t already done.

But with that sense of purpose, with that – let’s go ahead and label it “hand holding,” you’re presented with a world that is full of life, full of lore. Characters, personalities to learn about, to engage with, stories to become enthralled in.
You have a reason to exist within the area you’re currently in. There is a reason you’re killing those 30 boars. Or harvesting those 5 flowers for the little girl back in town. Otherwise, you’re wandering aimlessly throughout the world without purpose – trying to find the motivation to do anything.
Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe MMOs with a lack of direction just aren’t my thing.

Upon logging into the Early Access, I saw 3 different races. Humans, WildFolk and Demons. Demons are not yet implemented – and likely will never be implemented given the horrible reception Fractured has garnered.
I went with WildFolk because honestly – dear GOD what is that abomination of a character? That’s the kinda shit I’d dreamt up as a kid before proceeding to immediately run downstairs screaming saying Satan was coming to steal my soul.
After coming to terms with the trauma I suffered as a child, I selected my class. There were 4 to choose from: Gladiator, Bowman, Arcanist, and Street Rat.

Upon completion of your masterpiece, you’re thrown directly into the game with a number of tutorial quests that walk you through how to craft a few different items, how to learn your abilities, set presets so you can actually equip them.
It’s a whole lot of navigating confusing menus that could easily be condensed into a single skill or talent tree. I don’t understand why we’re forced into these overly complex methods of utilizing a basic feature like “dragging your ability onto your action bar.” It’s unnecessary.

After spending 20 minutes stabbing Wolves, looting mushrooms and peeling tree bark – all very important for what we had planned for this evening – we had successfully completed the tutorial, and left tutorial island.
And that is when the true game began.
I spent the remainder of the stream running aimlessly throughout the world, fleeing from the majority of monsters because they were just significantly more powerful than me. Harvesting the same materials from trees, from flora and fauna, from wildlife.
I believe I went 20 minutes without even engaging an enemy, because the game world is just so empty. So void of life. You see the odd monster here and there, a small camp of bandits. Not that that was necessarily a bad thing.
Combat in Fractured consisted of repeatedly clicking one of your mouse buttons, while waiting for and cycling through a small selection of abilities that all shared the exact same animation.

I understand the premise of providing players a large open world to explore at their own pace. I get the appeal – I used to wander off in Morrowind, spending hundreds of hours, raiding, leveling, getting the most powerful gear possible before returning to Seyda Neen and being told I need to go see Caius Cosades in Balmora.
But the difference was very evident: While I played in a large sandbox world, if there was ever a point that I felt I was growing bored, that things were too repetitive, I could immediately backtrack to and continue the story.
At the end of every journey was the possibility of even greater journeys, or, a return to the evolution of my story.
Having a narrative connects everything together. The lack of one I feel is inhibiting – and while I agree that survival games at their core don’t require a story – V Rising, Valheim, ARK – MMO’s most definitely do. You claim you’re creating an “MMORPG,” but the reality is this is a survival game.
There really aren’t any “RPG” elements present – Fractured isn’t a “new, innovative” kind of MMORPG. No. What Fractured is, is an empty, restrictive, inhibiting multiplayer game.

This is easily the most broken, underwhelming, low-quality MMO I’ve played all year. And that is including the Mobile MMOs I’ve played that auto-play the game for you.
Character animations were so jarring. My deer man dislocated his neck every time he ran. It was disturbing to constantly look at.
He couldn’t hold his spear – it was inches out of his hands.
While harvesting materials, my arms would immediately fall behind my back and I’d lose my shoulders. That is not in any way a normal interaction.
Balance and scaling were off.

I could rant for 10 minutes about every thing Fractured does wrong. But at the end of the day, nothing can sum up everything I want to say better than this: You are required to purchase the game to play it.
$130 for this broken, empty, abhorrent mess with “Mostly Negative” reviews. And those reviews are 100% warranted.
This is a terrible MMO – it’s an embarrassment to the genre. And honestly? I wouldn’t even classify it as an MMO. This is a low-budget survival game. And not the fun kind like Valheim, V Rising, or any of the other quality survival games released in the last few years.
I would not recommend this to anyone. This is a major pass from me.

With the backing of Gamigo, the devs over at Fractured have been able to push through quite a bit of their workload and as such, have a roadmap of things to expect over the course of the year.

Spring 2022 is the beginning of their Closed Beta, introducing the brand new continent of Aerhen, which brings with it new monsters, skills, and landscapes.
Summer 2022 is going to feature the new planet of Arboreus, along with the new Wildfolk race, asteroids, end-game PvP content and a functional day and night cycle.
Autumn 2022 will showcase another new race: the Demons, along with another new planet: Tartaros. Updated in Autumn will also feature an expansion of the crafting system.
Winter 2022 is when the developers are going to be preparing to launch the game. The core of the game will be ready, with a special feature that they don’t want to reveal until the game is closer to being ready to launch!
This all seems great. If only Gamigo wasn’t in charge of publishing it, I daresay I would be excited.

So Mrs Stix and I had the opportunity to participate in the Alpha test for the new upcoming Fractured MMO, and you know what? It was a very interesting experience.

Fractured is a very interesting MMO. I’ve only played a handful of isometric MMOs in my life, and that’s perhaps because they’re just not a very popular type of game. Fractured is very different to what I’ve experienced in the genre, though.
This game has a very large emphasis on crafting, on gathering, and surviving the wilderness. Yes, at its core it seems to be a survival MMO which I know a lot of survival games claim to be, but Fractured really seems to be capable of accomplishing this.
There are hundreds of other players all gathering, all attempting to craft, all fighting and occupying the same large, open world.
This is where the game shines, but also at the same time, where I feel the game really let me down. I’ve never invested much time into Albion Online – but from what I gathered, it, and Fractured both, are very sandbox-oriented.
They provide you a giant world to level in, to obtain gear, to make progress in mostly your own way, and while I understand that sense of freedom can be.. well, freeing for lack of a better word, I find that I enjoy myself more when there’s a set story and path.
So I guess depending on the side of the fence you’re on here, you’ll either love the ability to freely tackle every aspect of the game at your own pace, or hate the lack of direction.
Fractured is going to be a buy-to-play MMO – requiring a single purchase of the game to play forever. While I’m not sure how well this will ultimately sell, I feel like buy-to-play and pay-to-play MMOs are much less likely to end up pay-to-win, something prevalent in the free-to-play market.
Ultimately I had some fun in Fractured. Its action combat was alright – it wasn’t anything great, not as good as something like Diablo 3 or Path of Exile but I feel like that could be improved over time.
I look forward to seeing how the game ends up over the next Alpha test phases, Beta test phases, and then going into full release.
Fractured definitely has potential to be something pretty solid in terms of an isometric MMO, hopefully they listen to feedback and actually produce it.

Alright, I’ve given this game long enough I think. I’ve been covering Fractured for a while now – not in a dedicated sense, no, but I’ve been covering it periodically through my bi-weekly MMORPG News videos.
However, after first discussing it back in August 2017 – Wow, it’s been 3 years since I first talked about this game? How long has this MMO been in development for?
Looking at the Kickstarter, it seems as though everything was expected to deliver in December 2018. Yikes! And it’s already half way through 2020? Okay, so I get that this game has seen quite the delay.
But that happens, a lot with indie-MMOs, so it’s to be expected. I’d just forgotten it’d been in development for so long.

So I was on their website earlier, and noticed that the team behind the game are holding an open stress-test.
The test will take place on May 26th for those of you that back the game, and May 28th for everyone else. The test period is going to last until June 1st, 2020.

But since this is my first, large, dedicated video on Fractured, let’s talk about exactly what kind of game it is. That way, you guys can decide whether or not it’s worth your time.
So, what is Fractured? According to their website, Fractured is an upcoming MMORPG that they’re titling “The Dynamic MMO,” this is due to the game being heavily influenced by the actions of the player.
Every facet of the game, the combat, the environments, the economic system, civilizations and character progress are all supposed to be static, unique, defined by each and every individual. But we’ve heard this time and time again with MMOs, so I remain skeptical.
Fractured will be a PvPvE MMO that features 3 different worlds: Arboreus will be a PvE-world with Tartaros being a PvP-oriented world and Syndesia being a culmination of the two.
I’m not sure exactly how this will work, whether or not these worlds will function like servers, but supposedly you’re going to be capable of moving “between planets” but there will be limitations.
Fractured is an isometric MMO. You know Path of Exile or Diablo? Yeah, like that. Unlike the aforementioned games though, this is being done on a much tighter budget with a much smaller dev team – but that just means they likely have a much clearer defined focus on what they want.
I guess, if you were to compare this to anything, you could call this the “Western Lost Ark” or “Western Project TL,” as that’s essentially what this game is going to attempt to compete with.

Now before we go any further, no, Fractured is not going to be a free-to-play MMO.
Honestly, I struggle to see what their plan is here – there doesn’t seem to be too much interest in Fractured right now, with them raising $120,000 years ago in crowdfunding from only a thousand backers.
During their last stress-test, there were only 15,000 players online – which is substantially lower than MapleStory 2’s over 42,000 and only slightly higher than Soul Worker’s 11,000 player peak in concurrent players.
And those were both free games – this is going to be buy-to-play, which means you’re actually going to be required to fork out a hefty sum to be able to play it.
I’m not saying that Fractured won’t be worth the one-time fee, far from it. I think the game actually looks like it has a lot of potential.
My concern is that, realistically, with such little interest, it might end up turning out more like Project Gorgon, which is a fantastic game.. but nobody wants to play it because it requires a purchase.
I dunno. I feel like it would’ve been a better choice to launch this as a free MMO as it would definitely appeal to a significantly larger audience, much like how Albion Online, which was a buy-to-play sandbox MMO with 200 active concurrent players now averages almost 10,000 players at any given time during the day.

What makes Fractured unique? According to the website, the game is going to feature a large, open world that mixes in fully interactable environments and action combat to create a highly competitive, cooperative gameplay experience.
Not only will the game provide players a haven with which to craft, trade and adventure, but you’ll also be able to establish your very own settlement with your guild and grow it into a competitive empire.
While the stress-test is going to take place during the end of May, June will feature a brand new Alpha for backers to participate in. It will introduce a plethora of features that weren’t available during previous testing phases and will bring the game ever closer to its inevitable release.

I’m not overly fond of isometric MMOs. I had fun back when I played Devilian, I had some fun in Lost Ark, MU Legend was.. a little lackluster. My experience with the genre has definitely been lacking.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not excited to both stream and play Fractured. It’s a brand new upcoming MMO that I’ll be able to try out and experience not only with Mrs Stix, but also all of you.
While I may disagree with a few different aspects of the game, I’m still more than willing to give this a try.
I mean when Mrs Stix first tried out World of Warcraft, she couldn’t get over how bad the game looked. But the more she played, the more she slowly began to see the charm behind the game. Fast forward 2 years, and we’re still playing it periodically together.
The very same might apply to Fractured and I’m more than happy giving this game the benefit of the doubt.
The devs behind the game might be taking their time releasing the title, but I’d prefer they get everything right the first time, avoiding any potential failures that would result in the game shutting down before even having the chance of shining.