At Insomnia 56 this year held at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham, England, I was able to talk to Edge Case Games about their ever expanding and different take on the MOBA genre, Fractured Space. Now you might be thinking, ‘that sounds like a game set in space but surely it can’t be if it’s a MOBA, right?’ Well, if you hadn’t yet heard about Fractured Space… it’s exactly that; A MOBA using spaceships in a completely open space terrain. This means that even though you have a standard layout such as Dota 2 or League of Legends, with three ‘lanes’ or with their newly added ‘ARAM’ type mode with one lane, but you have the freedom to move around 360 degrees in an open space environment with only obstacles placed in your path. The game is currently in Early Access on Steam, with 3 available packs: Forerunner Pack for $9.99 (£6.99), Harbringer Pack for $19.99 (£14.99) and the Vanguard Pack for $39.99 (£29.99) but it will be free-to-play once released, and has plenty more content to come!
Now there are a few epic space titles out there, notably Eve Online and the upcoming Dreadnought, so what makes Fractured Space any different? A lot, actually. As I’ve already said, the game is a MOBA instead of the usual RTS/MMO but it also boasts certain aspects other games don’t have. Currently, there are over 20 playable ships in the game, which are unlocked the more you play as a certain team, similar to games like World of Tanks which has a tier system to unlock tanks.However, each ship is different, but is not better than the last, meaning that once you have unlocked all the ships and you match up with players who also have those ships, each player is equal to face each other but have a wide variety of ships to choose from. They have done this for a specific reason, I was told, to prevent new players from being utterly destroyed by those who have greater experience, and they can also get used to how the game plays before having access to more options.
For example, League of Legends (once you have leveled up past bot games) throws you into games with the potential of any champion in the game playing, which can be a very confusing and aggravating experience. It’s also a good mechanic to keep gamers playing to unlock more ships for their arsenal. On release there should be 33 ships, all complete with different weapons and abilities, including the traditional ‘Flash’ from other MOBA titles. There is also plans for 4 or 5 more content packs to be released before the developers begin focusing on balancing, which as we know is a very difficult aspect of these games. More maps are also on their way, so you can expect on release a full and lasting game, and completely free (unless you want to play early).
Something very important to Edge Case is their fans. Many of their actions are driven by the feedback they receive from their community, with regard to certain ships, game-modes, community involvement and any tweaks that are suggested which they believe will benefit everyone. There are currently community tournaments, some with prizes, which will be expanded upon in the future once the game is out of Early Access. Does this mean it could enter into Esports? They were very hush about it, but they said to expect something different in regards to Esports. Despite the genre, I did ask if there would be any kind of mod support as it’s on Steam and could use the Steam Workshop, but as expected they replied with it being very, very unlikely. The game is planned to release in the first half of next year, and although has no dates yet it should be coming to consoles sometime in the future too. After enjoying playing the game myself, I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys PVP action even if you aren’t a fan of the standard MOBA. You can find it right here.
Pssst… we also have four starter codes for the game to giveaway in Part 2 of our Christmas giveaway, so stay tuned if you want in!