Fragpunk Review – Heart Of The Shards

Hero shooters seem to be a dime a dozen these days. In the past few months, we’ve seen the Marvel-inspired take on the genre with Marvel Rivals, and now Bad Guitar has thrown their hat in the ring with FragPunk. An energetic shooter, mixed with a new card system, the studio hopes will be enough to cement itself in players’ increasingly expanding multiplayer library.

After investing a considerable amount of time in the game, I can say without reservation that Bad Guitar Studios has created one of the most refreshing takes on the genre in years, offering players one of the fastest, most fun, and frenzied online team shooters available on the market.

Shard Cards Shuffling Up The Match

The main game mode, Shard Clash, plays out much in the same way as the modes established by popular games in the genre, with the teams rotating between attackers and defenders, the defending team is tasked with stopping the other team planting a converter (bomb) on the designated sites, whilst the attacking team must plant the bomb and prevent the enemies defusing it. It’s a staple game mode, and whilst the Lancers (FragPunk‘s hero roster) is nice and varied, it’s the Shard card system that elevates FragPunk from a good shooter to a great one.

Shard cards are essentially tweaks that come into play each round, with the cards varying in their impact from the minimal to the more extravagant. As you play, you’ll earn shard points which can then be dished out into the three randomized cards that are dealt at the beginning of each round. These cards are then put into play for the upcoming round, creating some frantic and often amusing firefights.

One round may see all your ammo loaded into one mag, allowing the sub machine guns to absolutely pepper the enemy, whilst another may see you activate a card that grants your team small heads, or even a giant turtle on your back to deflect any damage coming from behind. The cards are constantly changing, and it makes each round feel fresh and every game you play feel fun and unpredictable in the best way. The cards are even able to affect the map with thick fog being cast over one bomb site, or erecting a wall, blocking the route to another. At the time of writing, there are well over 150 different shard cards, each capable of reshaping the game in exciting ways.

Fun Is The Name Of The Game

The choice of Lancers is great too. Each one feels well-designed and unique, with each one offering something different, making you adjust your playstyle to the abilities of your chosen Lancer. I tended to rotate heavily between Jaguar and Hollowpoint. Not because they’re any better than the others, Zephyr, Kismet, and Corona see a lot of playtime, but I found Hollowpoint’s utility complemented my playstyle.

The abilities on offer feel tailored to each lancer’s design, with Hollowpoint possessing a one-shot railgun, deployable traps to detect nearby enemies or a thick-walled smokescreen that moves forward, helping you reposition or push forward on enemies. Each lancer has their own three unique abilities, and it’s a lot of fun to explore games with them, whether you’re sliding around with Axel and his shotgun guitar or sending out dust tornadoes and Serket. They’re all so much fun to mess around with, and it’s addictive to continually experiment with each character’s kit. It’s just a shame that there’s quite a bit of playtime needed to unlock more lancers without spending real money, given their cost.

One great feature that FragPunk introduced to its Shard Clash mode is a game-deciding duel. This happens when the two teams can’t be separated after six rounds (or 10 in ranked), with the scores tied, players will be thrust into a one-on-one duel. Your team chooses positions, and then the first player is put in an enclosed map for a fight to the death, with the winner staying on to fight the team’s next player, continuing until one team has been wiped out completely, with the victorious team winning the duel, as well as the whole shard clash game. It’s a neat way to time up close games, and the stakes in the one-on-one duels feel incredibly tense.

What Else Is On Offer?

FragPunk offers more than the standard Shard Clash mode. Once players hit level 30, they can start to take on FragPunk Ranked mode. There are also a good number of traditional and fun modes to explore, with the standard team death, deathmatch and kill confirmed, as well as more quirky modes like one-shot and melee-only. Each of these modes is a lot of fun to get involved in and can feel like refreshing break from the more tense battles of Shard Clash, the only problem being that these arcade modes are on rotation and not available all of the time, so if you fancied jumping in to snipers only you make be in for a long wait until it rotates back round.

There’s also a zombie virus mode called Outbreak, which sees players battle against other infected players across multiple rounds. Once killed by an infected player, you then turn into the infected and help hunt down the remaining survivors. It sounds fun on paper, but the actual execution is pretty poor. The games last a very long time, and the bulky health of the parasites and abilities result in a rather unenjoyable experience. It took a long time to get into the game, and after playing it, I can understand why not many players are keen to dive back into it. It may be a good game mode in the future, but in its current state, it needs a fair amount of work done to it.

Unfortunately, like many free-to-play games, the storefront and in-game currency are a bit of a minefield with multiple unlockable items tied to different currencies and different loot boxes littering the game. It can be hard to keep track of what currency buys what. There’s also a premium pass and battle pass available for those looking to unlock better rewards and gear, some of the gun skins look great, but a lot of it is underwhelming, with a disappointing option of cosmetics that seem to rely primarily on simple color palette swaps, making the rewards feel a little bare bones. Hopefully, as the game continues to grow, the available skins will start to be more varied and distinct, alongside other rewards.

Final Thoughts

FragPunk is a fantastic addition to the hero-shooter genre. Its gunplay is snappy and fun, and the shard card system is an absolute delight to play with. It feels like a shooter built around the core idea of fun and, as a result, brings players a great online shooter that’s easy to pick up but incredibly hard to put down. The constant bombardment of new and exciting cards and tense firefights helps make FragPunk a contender for the throne instead of a throwaway imitation.