Fractured Lands Gameplay Beta Access Review

Fractured Lands Gameplay Beta Access Review

Yesterday I had my first opportunity to play the new Battle Royale game Fractured Lands by Unbroken Studios. This game is set in a Mad Max style dystopian future where, like other games in the BR genre, you fight and survive to be the last man standing to win the game. The spin Fractured Lands puts on BR comes in the form of customizable vehicles which can be used to ram and smash other players. For players that are looking for a new PUBG alternative, that works out of the box in the US (looking at you Ring of Elysium), this could be it…for now.

My immediate first impressions:

I do like this game. Fractured Lands is very much a PUBG clone. It’s built with the same Unreal Engine, offers the same basic look and feel, and has all the familiar elements that make up a BR game (multiplayer, map, blue zone, weapons, attachments, armor, heals and boosts). Being a 1,000 hour PUBG player, Fractured Lands offers controls and bindings that made me feel right at home. It took me a few rounds to figure out some of the intricacies such as weapon classes, attachments, vehicle upgrades and players movements but all in all it plays as right as you’d expect a PC based FPS would in 2018. The closed beta only consisted of around 25 players in each match though it’s pretty safe to assume that when the beta opens up we’ll see a more standard 100 player matches. Keeping in mind that we are in a very very early stage of the development cycle, Fractured Lands definitely has major potential to steal away some market share.

Things they got right:

Art



The art design in Fractured Lands is fantastic. From the post apocalyptic desert landscape, to the Mad Max Camero looking vehicles, they basically got everything right when it comes to offering an environment where players instantly know where they are. The giant storm that acts as the blue zone mechanic is freaking awesome to look at it. This is the first BR game that I actually felt there would be drastic consequences for not making it into the white zone as the map collapses. I have to give big big props to the art team at Unbroken who stylized the hell out of this game and really made it something unique and fun.

Sound

The music that plays in the home menu is spot on with the overall mood of the game. Also the sounds that are played throughout the gameplay are very well done. Specifically the engine sound from the vehicles, gun shots and looming storm. You can tell a lot of thought and care was put into making the game sound like something that would match the environment. This is definitely a detail that’s often overlooked in games but one that I certainly appreciate.

Gameplay

They didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Some may try to criticize Fractured Lands for not offering enough unique differentiation from similar BR games like PUBG and RoE, however there’s something to be said for simply creating a game that’s familiar. Personally I find game mechanics like farming mats and building tree houses in Fortnite to be tedious and boring. Fractured Lands appears to be aimed at audiences who prefer a more realistic battle royale game mode and I applaud them for their efforts. Oh, and there’s no random bombing zones (ie Red Zone) which they definitely got right for omitting.

Opportunities for improvement:

Peaking

At the heart of any BR game is gun fights. The single biggest suggestion I have for Fractured Lands is adding the ability to peak. Without the peaking mechanic there is a very little advantage to being behind cover. Being that you’re in first person perspective, you’re forced to offer your whole body when looking out at an enemy. This is very problematic and will likely lead to frustrated players.

Vaulting

This what something that took BlueHole a long time to implement and from listening to interviews with Brendan Greene, it’s actually quite difficult to pull off. Having played PUBG before vaulting was available (the crouch jumping era), I can honestly say that it definitely adds to the feel of the environment knowing that when you’re faced with an obstacle you can simply vault over or on top of it.

Hit Feedback

I had a really hard time knowing when I landed a hit on an opponent. It’s easier to see when landing hits with a gun, however there is no feedback at all when landing a melee attack with the default spiked baseball bat. I chalk this one up to the beta and certainly expect improvements in later stages in the dev cycle. I suggest also changing the melee swing of the baseball bat from a top to bottom motion to a more side to side, or wide swing motion as well as visual impact on the other player. PUBG suffers from the same thing with the machete and crow bars, though when you land a hit with them you instantly hear the umph sound and see blood splatter.

Inventory UI

This may be something that becomes second nature the more you play the game, but I had a really hard time figuring out which attachments went with which gun. All the attachments look the same, only offering a short 2-3 letter acronym of gun they belong to. So instead of being able to visually recognize which attachments go on which guns, you have to read the description of the attachment. Also the guns themselves don’t appear visually in your inventory so it’s hard to tell what you currently have equip and what slots are open for attachments. This is something that PUBG and RoE do very well. I do like how quickly you can hot swap between weapons which makes gun fights feel more like Fortnite than other BR titles.

The Vehicle

So this is one thing that I struggled to fully understand. The car is a major aspect of this game, yet it felt to me as nothing more than a way to get from point A to point B. There are lootable upgrades that you can give to your car to give it more durability, as well as offensive and defensive properties, along with trunk room to store extra attachments, however in the single car vs. car engagement I got into, I found it to be far more beneficial to jump out of the car and just shoot at the other driver. There also didn’t seem to be any way to give the car any more speed. For comparison, in PUBG when press the shift key you’re given a little speed boost at the expense of running out of gas quicker. Fractured Lands doesn’t offer this capability, rather relying on looting upgrades to give your vehicle benefits.

Also, they make a ton of sound which made it really easy to listen for when a player was headed your way. In the games I played, the majority of the kills I got were from hearing vehicles heading my way and waiting for the player to hop out. Similarly, I was easily picked off when I came to an area where a player was already there waiting. Maybe if they offered an upgrade that would completely silence the car that would give them more utility beyond basic transportation.

In BR games, in order to win you have to continue to work your way closer to the safe zone. The map in Fractured Lands is definitely big, and based on the walk/run speed of your character, you won’t be safe without a car, and since every player is given a car to start with it would seem like they would play a bigger role in the game. For me they just didn’t.

Final Thoughts

In it’s current state, Fractured Lands is very playable and has a lot of potential. Much like how Realm Royale will compete head on with Fortnite, Fractured Lands is positioned to most likely take on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. While it does offer some unique differences, there is definitely a lot of parity. I expect the devs to continue to make improvements with each beta release, however as Shroud has said when testing new BR games, without something truly innovative and different, why not just play PUBG? Yes, PUBG is far from perfect, and playing the same 2 maps over and over does get stale, but PUBG is light years ahead in terms of UX. I do believe that Fractured Lands will take some market share away from the realistic sim style BR games and I’m sure there will be an audience for this game. Making it free-to-play and available on Xbox and Play Station will also help with it’s success being that PUBG is still a pay to play game and struggling on it’s exclusive Xbox console.

I give this Fractured Lands Gameplay Beta Access Review a solid 7 out of 10 for where they are in the closed beta and have high hopes for future states of the game.