14 DAY TRIAL // LucasArts promises to release a demo of its upcoming Fracture via the Xbox Live service from Microsoft and via the PlayStation Network from Sony on September 18. The move is designed to create awareness about the title in the gaming community and help build up hype for the release which is scheduled for October 7.
The game is published by LucasArts, which is also behind Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, with development duties handled by Day 1 Studios. Internal development at LucasArts is scheduled to stop sometime this fall, so the company is working hard to create some sustainable franchises until then.
The developers say that the demo will offer gamers the chance to play a single player level that has both puzzle elements and a lot of combat action. The demo will try to put the emphasis on the terrain deformation feature of Fracture, showing how it can be put to good use by players that have to reach some far away area, sink below the surface to avoid enemy fire or create temporary cover from which they can take out enemies.
The story of Fracture is actually quite complicated, although it's not clear what impact it will have on the actual gameplay. In the near future, global warming has taken its toll on Earth and its inhabitants and a shift in the tectonic plates has managed to create a situation where two rival superpowers separated by water square off in a war of contrasting ideologies. We have the Atlantic Alliance that believes cybernetics can save the human race and the Republic of Pacifica which puts all its faith in modifying the human genome. And both of them have developed powerful terraforming techniques which are put to good use as they fight for domination.