The Art of... Fracked
2021’s first-person action game Fracked is likely to be remembered as one of the last great PSVR titles – and perhaps the first must-have for Sony’s PSVR2 when it arrives. Glenn Brace, nDreams’ former Head of Art (and now head of nDreams Studio Elevation), recalls the artistic effort that went into its creation
Glenn Bruce, nDreams’ former Head of Art (and now head of nDreams Studio Elevation)
HOW DID THE IDEA FOR THE GAME AND ITS VISUAL DESIGN COME ABOUT? The game’s original concept was born from a desire to solve the comfort issues associated with VR first-person action genres at the time. That was more the brief for success; as a studio we wanted to crack the aspiration and expectation of full agency, freedom of movement and player choice within an explorable 3D world. What we ended up with was very much an evolution born of an agile, fail-fast approach and discovery phase, to realising the current vision of the game. Both the features and visual design we launched with were very different from what we originally started with, and for the better!
After some discovery, a few happy accidents, we pivoted the project, leaned into, and built upon those features. This quickly re-shaped our combat and traversal mechanics allowing us to form complementary features and systems that really maximised those mechanics. Where we ended up was “boombastic arcade action,” relying on a very tactile cover-based system (or “peek-a-boo” as we called it at the time). The visual design was envisaged to support the tone of action, the fast and fluid pace of play, whilst allowing for a large enough open world to be rendered. The trick was to take those requirements and craft them into something aspirational and ownable. The early clarity of experience and requirements enabled us to properly strategize our style and rendering execution up front, making the most of the hardware we had.
62 | MCV/DEVELOP March 2022
HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT THAT FRACKED WAS DISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE GAMES THAT HAVE INFLUENCED IT?
Legibility and accessibility to our world was the focus. A style that gave clarity in VR, clarity for interaction, cover, and traversal opportunities. We needed to create open spaces that served the core combat mechanics and traversal in a slick, fast, frictionless way. So, leaning into the gung-ho, bombastic tone of
the 80’s 90’s action movie vibes, presented in a retro, graphic novel inspired finish, was our route to delivering bold, impressionistic overtones across a world that met both rendering and interaction expectations. Stylistically it’s a vivid bold dangerous world, unapologetically strong and stylized. The visuals match and support the pure simplicity and attraction of solid gunplay action, delivering monosyllabic exposition, the kind you’d expect from an Arnie movie of days gone. It’s more a tone that we homed in on and made our own. That’s our distinction. The graphic, illustrative visuals, attitude, and way you interacted with Fracked, embodies the improvised John McClane within us all.
HOW MUCH OF A DEPARTURE WAS FRACKED FROM YOUR PREVIOUS TITLES? Stylistically very different, but in a strategic approach, quite similar. Phantom Covert Ops and Fracked seem poles apart on the surface but in development practice they both contextualise action for comfort and accessibility in VR. There are parallels between kayaking and skiing, plus both games bring 1:1 agency to traversal
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