Breaking New Ground: Fracture Interview

LucasArts and Day 1 Studios want you to change your world. We find out how.

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This fierce grouping of grenades supplements the other weapons in the game, giving you more options on the battlefield. But they're more useful than that. They can be used for puzzle solving too.

For example, early in the game, when you're still being taught how to use the different grenades, there's an anti-aircraft gun that needs to be disabled. Stock weapons are, naturally, of little use, but by using the tectonic grenade to raise the ground beneath the gun you are able to lift it and smash it into a powerful shield above it, disabling the gun and completing your objective.

"You're able to adjust the battlefield on the fly, any way you want, for any number of purposes - for navigation, for tactics, for defense, for puzzle solving, for sheer destruction and for cover," says Suey.

"Next-gen's not just about getting prettier and sharper graphics, it's also about using the enhanced technology to redefine the way you approach the situation."

One potential problem that comes from this freedom is the abuse of the system. There are arbitrary tethers in place, such as ceilings that prevent you from just building the terrain up and up, but a large part of making it all work comes in at the testing phase.

Even though there's still nearly a year to go until Fracture sees release next summer, the quality assurance department at Day 1 is already pushing the system, working out what sort of trouble players could potentially get themselves into.

"As games become more and more complication," says Suey, "there's more and more factors that come together to create scenarios that are almost impossible to think of until you get hands on."

Another reason why so much QA work is required is because the game has to react to the same deformed terrain as you do. Should you raise a mound, enemies will decide whether it's best to come straight after you by going around the obstacle or if they'll have better luck going up the mound to get at you.

"You're definitely going to have to start thinking about how you want to use terrain deformation," says Suey.

With nine months to go until the game comes out next summer, there's time to do a lot of thinking.

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