LucasArts, a company well known to gamers for titles like Indiana Jones and StarWars, is ready to rock the gaming world with a new franchise, Fracture. LucasArts’ development partner is Day 1 Studios.

In Fracture, the players will be able to reshape the battlefields in a futuristic conflict with global implications.

“Exciting new intellectual properties serve a vital role to the growth of LucasArts,” said Jim Ward, president of LucasArts. “Fracture represents the next step in this company initiative, complete with the intriguing story and compelling characters audiences expect of a LucasArts release.”

The story behind Fracture advances player in 2161, in a world where ecological and seismological disasters have radically altered the planet’s landscape.  

Players will step up in the shoes (boots, or..whatever) of Mason Briggs, a demolitions expert fighting for the Atlantic Alliance, the side that relies upon cybernetic enhancement.

In utilizing the core gameplay mechanic of Fracture, a destructive next-generation technology known as Terrain Deformation, players are equipped with an arsenal of futuristic weaponry to strategically reshape their surroundings on the fly. Every action they perform dynamically reshapes the earth in ways no videogame has ever seen. When Briggs throws a tectonic grenade on a level battlefield, the ground blasts upward to provide access to an otherwise unreachable area. Moving on, 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. Sounds like a lor of fun isn’t it ?

“LucasArts sees simulation-based gameplay as an essential component of a true next-gen experience, and that’s exactly what Fracture delivers,” said Peter Hirschmann, vice president of product development at LucasArts. “Day 1 Studios has done a phenomenal job of creating true next-gen tech that not only dazzles on a visual level but also serves as a core gameplay mechanic. Unlike many other next-gen games on the market, Fracture simply isn’t possible in the previous generation of consoles.”

For the moment Fracture is set to be launched in summer 2008 for Xbox 360 and PS3.