LucasArts to Fracture 360, PS3 in '08

Last August, LucasArts announced a new partnership with an independent developer. The studio in question was Chicago-based Day 1 Studios, the shop that instilled F.E.A.R. in the Xbox 360 and launched the MechAssault series onto the original Xbox. Though the executives were eager to talk up their deal, they were mostly mum on their first collaboration, saying only that it was "an all-new original intellectual property for next-generation consoles."

Today, the unknown game got a name, Fracture, a release window, Summer 2008, and two platforms, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. LucasArts didn't reveal much about Fracture's gameplay, other than it will be a third-person shooter, but it did go into great detail about the game's plot. The game will be set in the year 2161, after the continental United States is bisected by massive earthquakes and a Mississippi River engorged with polar-ice-cap runoff. Following the catastrophe, the US splits into two countries: The eastern states form the Atlantic Alliance, which has close ties with Europe, while the West founds the Republic of Pacifica and allies with Asia.

The game begins with the Atlantic Alliance and Pacifica going to war following years of tension. Players will be cast as Mason Briggs, a soldier fighting for the Atlantic Alliance military, which relies heavily on cybernetic augmentation. Meanwhile, the Pacifican forces favor genetic engineering--which is an anathema to Atlantians--and have grown an army of supersoldiers capable of taking on cyborgs. Each side will have special abilities and tactics specific to its preferred method of human enhancement.

Briggs' own specialty is demolitions, and LucasArts made much of how his arsenal can alter the landscape by a process called "terrain deformation." "When Briggs throws a tectonic grenade on a level battlefield, the ground blasts upward to provide access to an otherwise unreachable area," the company said in a statement. "When he comes across what appears to be an impenetrable structure, Briggs utilizes the alt-fire functionality on his rocket launcher to create enormous craters to burrow underneath the wall. Surrounded on all sides by enemies, Briggs heaves a vortex grenade, creating a swirling tornado-like mass of boulder, dirt and debris to dispatch his foes."

[UPDATE] For a closer look at Fracture, check out GameSpot's preview of the game.