Of all the genres that NetEase has had a hand in publishing, a competitive fast-paced FPS hasn’t yet been one of them. The newly announced FragPunk from Bad Guitar Studio, a subsidiary of NetEase’s ThunderFire Studio, aims to bring the competitive 5v5 gunplay to the masses with a unique twist: Shard Cards. We got to experience the chaotic clash firsthand with a few rounds accompanied by two of the lead developers on the project.
Recently unveiled during the Xbox Games Showcase, FragPunk is a fusion between two of the most popular competitive FPS on the market: Overwatch and Counter-Strike. From the former, Fragpunk utilizes a hero system for unique character abilities and a bright and colorful aesthetic that pops from against the more muted backgrounds; from the latter, round-based bomb defusal missions and an artificial limitation on what weapons can be used per round. While the devs didn’t let us take a deep dive into the equipment systems, rather than buying weapons between rounds, players pick both their hero and weapon loadouts with a number counter indicating how many times they could be purchased per match.
Each of the ten-plus champions, or Lancers in the FragPunk universe, come with their own set of three abilities that each operate on separate cooldowns. The most obvious of character abilities mimicked a smoke grenade that defenders would frequently deploy to obscure lines of sight but players should expect to see more than a few surprises that don’t usually pop up in the wide range of hero shooters already on the market. These augment the primary, secondary, and melee weapons players pick out before each round, and with game types switching from defenders and attackers, will see drastically different hero selections per match. I inquired with the devs if there would be a sort of pick/ban system that could be implemented but it didn’t quite sound like that was an option on the table just yet.
What separates FragPunk from its contemporaries and even the likes of Friends vs Friends is the Shard Card system. With over 70 different ability cards to drop between matches, players will get a randomly drawn hand between each round and play cards that all have drastically different effects from each other. During the draft phase, players can also see which cards the enemy team is looking to play. Once the team finishes playing/discarding cards, the final three cards selected are locked in. From here, players can spend crystals to power up certain cards and increase their effectiveness. One of these cards increased magazine size each time players boosted it in the match and, in turn, enhanced my pump-action shotgun to mow down the entire enemy team without needing to pull back and reload. Other silly rules, like Big Head Mode and others, bring some variety to the tactics players on both sides will need to deal with. Some bring passive effects to the map, including introducing a Bombsite C or plant overgrowth, while others directly impact combat, such as a chain lightning that bounces between enemies when struck.
Now, while I don’t consider FragPunk a proper esports contender (its random nature is far too chaotic without restricting the card pool to something more manageable), it already has its hooks in me as another fun shooter to pick up on the weekends with friends. In the ever-expanding sea of hero shooters, FragPunk still has a unique draw that will entice players to see what’s on the table when it launches for PC and Xbox Series S|X in 2025.
