The new sandbox MMORPG Fractured Online will shut down on January 31, 2023, at least for the time being. The Early Access phase on Steam and its own servers have to be shut down in order to work on the game again without it running. Why is that?
What’s going on at Fractured? The new sandbox MMORPG Fractured Online only started in Early Access on September 15th on Steam. On January 31st, almost 4 months after the start, this phase has to be stopped again. Most recently, Fractured only had 23 players on Steam. But that doesn’t seem to be the problem.
The developers, Dynmight Studios, cite problems with third-party platforms that provide their servers as the reason for the shutdown. They no longer want to rely on server hosts in the future and want to publish the game on their own servers, they explain in a statement.
In order for this to work, however, the game must first go completely offline. That will happen on January 31, 2023.
What does this mean for players? They have to say goodbye to their entire progress first, because the servers will also be completely emptied with the shutdown. This is referred to as a “wipe”. That’s not uncommon for games in Early Access, though annoying.
Apart from that, Fractured Online should no longer be available for purchase until the problems are solved. In a statement from the developers on their own Discord, the CEO wrote at around 6pm on December 23rd that all sales for Fractured would be discontinued later that day.
Today, December 24th at 12:00 p.m., the MMORPG is still available for purchase, but that will soon no longer be the case.
It is currently unclear whether there will be compensation or refunds for keys that have already been sold. The developers have not yet commented on this.
There was this chic trailer for the Early Access start of Fractured:
Fractured Online – Early Access Launch Trailer
Trouble with German publisher could be to blame
What is meant by third-party platforms? Already on December 22nd we reported that the German publisher Gamigo had to part with some MMORPGs. Last Chaos, Shaiya and Co. were mentioned by name, but not Fractured Online, who were also at the start at Gamigo.
However, at the same time as Fractured was announced, the game also disappeared from the publisher’s website. Gamigo has not yet made a statement on this, but fans suspect that the two events are directly related.
The developers of Fractured remain “deliberately vague” in their statements due to “legal reasons”. So it’s not officially up to Gamigo, but there are many indications that it is. The only thing that has been confirmed so far is that it is not a problem with the game engine SpatialOS.
Big changes when the MMORPG returns
What’s next for Fractured? The MMORPG should definitely return as soon as a suitable server structure has been set up. The developers explain that even a lot of new content should start afterwards.
Only part of the employees are working on the move to the new server and a large part of the team is still busy producing new content. Thus, with the restart, Fractured should also receive the biggest update to date.
This focuses on winning back players and improving the quality of life in the game. In addition, the Myr continent will be completely removed, which is simply too empty and too boring, according to the game’s CEO on Discord.
A roadmap for 2023 should also follow as soon as the currently somewhat chaotic situation has stabilized, according to a statement from the developers. We at MeinMMO will of course keep you up to date on the situation of Fractured Online.
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