Insomnia 56 (i56) – Fractured Space

<p>At Insomnia 56 this year held at the National Exhibition Centre &lpar;NEC&rpar; in Birmingham&comma; England&comma; I was able to talk to Edge Case Games about their ever expanding and different take on the MOBA genre&comma; <em>Fractured Space<&sol;em>&period; Now you might be thinking&comma; &&num;8216&semi;that sounds like a game set in space but surely it can&&num;8217&semi;t be if it&&num;8217&semi;s a MOBA&comma; right&quest;&&num;8217&semi; Well&comma; if you hadn&&num;8217&semi;t yet heard about <em>Fractured Space<&sol;em>&&num;8230&semi; it&&num;8217&semi;s exactly that&semi; A MOBA using spaceships in a completely open space terrain&period; This means that even though you have a standard layout such as <em>Dota 2<&sol;em> or <em>League of Legends<&sol;em>&comma; with three &&num;8216&semi;lanes&&num;8217&semi; or with their newly added &&num;8216&semi;ARAM&&num;8217&semi; type mode with one lane&comma; but you have the freedom to move around 360 degrees in an open space environment with only obstacles placed in your path&period; The game is currently in Early Access on Steam&comma; with 3 available packs&colon; Forerunner Pack for &dollar;9&period;99 &lpar;£6&period;99&rpar;&comma; Harbringer Pack for &dollar;19&period;99 &lpar;£14&period;99&rpar; and the Vanguard Pack for &dollar;39&period;99 &lpar;£29&period;99&rpar; but it will be free-to-play once released&comma; and has plenty more content to come&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1654px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;embed&period;gyazo&period;com&sol;ea09bc4c0cc697cddcc2838abc80a2f0&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Fractured Space" width&equals;"1654" height&equals;"930" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Fractured Space&comma; Edge Case Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Now there are a few epic space titles out there&comma; notably <em>Eve Online<&sol;em> and the upcoming <em>Dreadnought<&sol;em>&comma; so what makes <em>Fractured Space<&sol;em> any different&quest; A lot&comma; actually&period; As I&&num;8217&semi;ve already said&comma; the game is a MOBA instead of the usual RTS&sol;MMO but it also boasts certain aspects other games don&&num;8217&semi;t have&period; Currently&comma; there are over 20 playable ships in the game&comma; which are unlocked the more you play as a certain team&comma; similar to games like <em>World of Tanks<&sol;em> which has a tier system to unlock tanks&period;However&comma; each ship is different&comma; but is not better than the last&comma; meaning that once you have unlocked all the ships and you match up with players who also have those ships&comma; each player is equal to face each other but have a wide variety of ships to choose from&period; They have done this for a specific reason&comma; I was told&comma; to prevent new players from being utterly destroyed by those who have greater experience&comma; and they can also get used to how the game plays before having access to more options&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For example&comma; <em>League of Legends<&sol;em> &lpar;once you have leveled up past bot games&rpar; throws you into games with the potential of any champion in the game playing&comma; which can be a very confusing and aggravating experience&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s also a good mechanic to keep gamers playing to unlock more ships for their arsenal&period; On release there should be 33 ships&comma; all complete with different weapons and abilities&comma; including the traditional &&num;8216&semi;Flash&&num;8217&semi; from other MOBA titles&period; There is also plans for 4 or 5 more content packs to be released before the developers begin focusing on balancing&comma; which as we know is a very difficult aspect of these games&period; More maps are also on their way&comma; so you can expect on release a full and lasting game&comma; and completely free &lpar;unless you want to play early&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Something very important to Edge Case is their fans&period; Many of their actions are driven by the feedback they receive from their community&comma; with regard to certain ships&comma; game-modes&comma; community involvement and any tweaks that are suggested which they believe will benefit everyone&period; There are currently community tournaments&comma; some with prizes&comma; which will be expanded upon in the future once the game is out of Early Access&period; Does this mean it could enter into Esports&quest; They were very hush about it&comma; but they said to expect something different in regards to Esports&period; Despite the genre&comma; I did ask if there would be any kind of mod support as it&&num;8217&semi;s on Steam and could use the Steam Workshop&comma; but as expected they replied with it being very&comma; very unlikely&period; The game is planned to release in the first half of next year&comma; and although has no dates yet it should be coming to consoles sometime in the future too&period; After enjoying playing the game myself&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;d recommend this to anyone who enjoys PVP action even if you aren&&num;8217&semi;t a fan of the standard MOBA&period; You can find it right <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;store&period;steampowered&period;com&sol;app&sol;310380&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank">here<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1024px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;fracturedspace&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;01&sol;FS&lowbar;SCREEN1&lowbar;HUD-1030x579-1024x576&period;png" alt&equals;"Fractured Space" width&equals;"1024" height&equals;"576" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Early Access Update January 2015 &lpar;Fractured Space&comma; Edge Case Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Pssst&&num;8230&semi; we also have four starter codes for the game to giveaway in Part 2 of our Christmas giveaway&comma; so stay tuned if you want in&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;