Fractured Online Scales Back After Launch and F2P Conversion Underperform, Development to Continue

Fractured Online’s development will continue, despite a scaling back of the team after the free to play conversion didn’t hit the marks the team at Dynamight Studios had hoped for. 

The update came in a message from CEO Jacopo, who is one of the three developers left on the project as of the end of December. 

“The full release in the summer and the F2P transition in November have performed way below expectations,” he says, attributing some of that to the competition in the fall, as well as a lack of marketing budget. It’s a transparent statement, and as the industry is in a deeply rough period as a whole, and indie development is already tough, it’s understandable. 

Revenue Dynamight had been earning was going towards the four developers that were laid off, as well as the costs of running the game, like server costs. The three remaining full-time devs, Jacopo, Andrea, and Michele, are the company's co-founders, and will be basically working unpaid, which they have done often over the past couple of years. They cover the bases of design, development, and art, but in the update, patience is definitely needed because there are three people and as the update says, they can only create new content so fast. 

This is the first status update on the game in a while, and Jacopo says that he had to take some time off because of burnout, but things are getting back on track. This update is about how things are going right now, but will hear about progress on dungeons and development plans, including a roadmap.

“I've been trying, and I'll keep trying, to secure new investment for the company. This is also really hard, as the whole gaming industry is not in a healthy state these days” Jacopo says.  

Fractured Online has gone through a whole bunch of changes since its formal announcement and a publishing deal that ultimately fell through. As they decided to self-publish and continue development, they've also altered some of their plans for the original game, scaling things a bit and changing some of the mechanics and systems.