There was always a sneaking suspicion that it’s really just about the guns. Yes, Fracture has a promising setting – a civil war between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of America, fuelled by the western states’ exploitation of genetic manipulation – but it was clear even at first glance that the team had more fun designing ludicrous, noisy means of blowing one another up than working the flamboyant arsenal into some kind of sensible plot.



That certainly hasn’t changed – there are weapons that cause giant rocky outcrops to erupt from the ground, others that burrow under the topsoil like land-based torpedoes, and another that creates a glowing maelstrom that sucks in anything or anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity. As for the narrative basis underlying the battle against the transhuman Pacificans, who knows whether that amounts to more than a thin sci-fi mulch; it’s not really been Day 1’s focus when promoting the game. Instead, the various press screenings have all hoped to demonstrate Fracture’s gimmick of environmental deformation to the exclusion of the game’s other qualities.



And it is a gimmick – in fact, the more we see of the game, the more concerned we get that it’s a gimmick that exists only within tightly defined parameters. From the outset we had reservations about the fact that buildings were not as destructible as the land – now we realize that far from being a universally applied mechanic around which a game has been built, Fracture is far more a traditional shooter which allows you to dig holes in certain places. Hemmed in by non-modifiable rock-faces, gameplay occurs in a series of linearly interconnected playpens, the ground of which can be raised, within limitations, and sunk, within limitations.