Elemental Fracture: Game v6.2.17 · Launcher v3.2.0

Relaunch your launcher, let it pull v6.2.17, and play. No re-register.

This update brings Elemental Fracture into Steam and fixes the crash that came with it. If you play on a controller through Steam, this one is for you.

Play from your Steam library

Plenty of players map their controller onto keyboard keys through Steam, and Spellbreak runs far better that way. There is now a Steam section in Settings that sets it up for you.

• Own Spellbreak on Steam? Turn on Play Spellbreak from Steam. Pressing Play on Spellbreak in your Steam library now opens Elemental Fracture, and Steam treats it as Spellbreak: your controller layouts, the Steam overlay and your playtime all work. Your Elemental Fracture files stay where they are; Spellbreak just needs to be installed in Steam so the Play button shows up.
• Don’t own it on Steam? Turn on Add Elemental Fracture to Steam. The launcher adds itself to your library as a non-Steam game, artwork included, so you can give it a controller layout without adding it by hand.
• Close Steam first. Steam saves its own settings when it exits and would undo the change, so both switches wait until Steam is closed. If it is running, the launcher offers a Close Steam button.
• Turning either one off puts things back. Unlinking restores whatever Spellbreak’s Steam launch settings were before, and removing the shortcut removes only the entry the launcher made.

Straight into the game

Once Play Spellbreak from Steam is on, pressing Play in Steam skips the launcher and starts the game in the game mode you last picked. The launcher runs the same checks the Play button does behind the scenes, and closes itself when you quit the game.

• Need the launcher? Hold Shift while you press Play, until the launcher appears. That is how you switch game modes or change settings.
• It still opens when it needs you. If there is an update to install or you need to sign in, the launcher opens on its own and tells you why.
• Prefer to always see the launcher? Turn off Go straight into the game in Settings, under Steam.

On Linux, holding Shift works while Steam’s own window has focus. On a Steam Deck in Game Mode there is no Shift to hold, so turn it off whenever you want the launcher.

The Steam overlay crash is fixed

Launching through Steam with the overlay on used to crash the game on the way in with a Fatal error: EXCEPTION_STACK_OVERFLOW, which hit most people playing on a controller through Steam Input.

The cause was two overlays fighting over the same frame. The in-game EF Controller (F8) and Steam’s overlay both hook the game’s rendering, and the way EF Controller hooked it made Steam’s overlay install itself twice and then call itself without end, until the render thread ran out of room and the game aborted before it finished loading. EF Controller now hooks rendering the same way Steam’s overlay does, so the two share the frame instead of fighting over it. Both overlays draw, and the game starts.

Your controller layout lasts the whole match

When Steam starts a game, it keeps your controller layout applied only while the program it started is still running. The launcher used to close a moment after the game launched (with “Close launcher when the game starts” on), which quietly switched your layout back mid-match. Started from Steam, closing the launcher now minimizes it instead, and it leaves on its own once the game exits. Steam sees one continuous session, and your layout stays put.

Also in this update

• Linux Steam shortcuts no longer risk a blank window. Steam hands the programs it starts its own set of system libraries, which could clash with your graphics driver. The launcher now sets those aside when Steam starts it.
• On Linux, the link shows up in Steam as a compatibility tool. Spellbreak’s Compatibility setting in Steam will read Elemental Fracture. That is expected: it is how Play reaches the launcher.
• Startup errors are visible on Windows. If the launcher ever fails to start, it now shows an error message instead of closing silently, so there is something to report.
• Reset only resets this page. The Reset settings button in Settings now resets just the settings on that page, and leaves your install, sign-in and everything else alone.

Update: relaunch your launcher, accept the launcher update to v3.2.0, and it pulls game v6.2.17 automatically.

– Doobs