Surprising No One, Fractured Online Will Go Free-To-Play And Is Shifting To Seasonal And Dungeon Content Development

Look, I've been rooting for Fractured Online. I've had the opportunity to speak to multiple members and leaders of the MMORPG's team over the years, and damn are they a passionate bunch. It's been...well...a bit of a fractured path to get this far for that team.

Being a small team working on an MMO isn't an easy task to begin with and Fractured Online has had additional challenges, some self-inflicted, along the way.

From the highs of picking up a partner in gamigo (a partner we were VERY skeptical was good for the game when announced) to the lows of losing that partner after a rocky Steam release, it's been rough. Fractured Online removed itself from Steam to rework the MMO's "backend" and came back to new issues like a hack that deleted all player-built cities.

In November of last year, Fractured said it had sold over 5K copies and the company hoped to be able to pay all employees for 2023, including the employees that had previously been let go.

See? It's been a bit of a ride.

After all of that, it probably surprises no one reading this to hear that Fractured Online is finally ditching the $15 box price and converting to a free-to-play (F2P) model. The post announcing the news doesn't include a date yet, though. In fact, this has been a rumor for a while now, something the post acknowledges. However, the team elected to wait on the transition after feedback from players pointed to more content being needed before the game opened the doors.

If you bought the game, the F2P launch will give you some subscription time or cash shop currency to compensate you for your purchase.

The post also describes a few changes coming this week to potions and teases another changes, but the real secondary news comes in the form of a roadmap update. As F2P nears, the team is shifting the focus of their development to endgame gameplay loops. This will primarily come in the form of Seasons (3 months long) and dungeons. Yes, if you didn't know, Fractured doesn't have instanced dungeons like you think of them right now. Well, they will have them in the future.

That said, they won't be ready in time for a F2P launch, which I think is kind of a mistake. I feel like PvE focused players will expect those to already be a thing. Granted, Fractured Online is more about city building and more sandbox than theme park, but if you're going to add dungeons, they should probably be there for F2P launch.

My guess here is that they are starting these from scratch now and the F2P conversion can't wait. Fractured needs players ASAP.

Will going F2P help Fractured Online? Let me know your thoughts below.