Fragpunk Overview – Coronary heart of the Shards

Hero shooters appear to be a dime a dozen nowadays. Prior to now few months, we’ve seen the Marvel-inspired tackle the style with Marvel Rivals, and now Dangerous Guitar has thrown their hat within the ring with FragPunk. An brisk shooter, blended with a brand new card system, the studio hopes will likely be sufficient to cement itself in gamers’ more and more increasing multiplayer library.

After investing a substantial period of time within the sport, I can say with out reservation that Dangerous Guitar Studios has created one of the refreshing takes on the style in years, providing gamers one of many quickest, most enjoyable, and frenzied on-line crew shooters accessible available on the market.

Shard Playing cards Shuffling Up The Match

The primary sport mode, Shard Conflict, performs out a lot in the identical method because the modes established by common video games within the style, with the groups rotating between attackers and defenders, the defending crew is tasked with stopping the opposite crew planting a converter (bomb) on the designated websites, while the attacking crew should plant the bomb and stop the enemies defusing it. It’s a staple sport mode, and while the Lancers (FragPunk‘s hero roster) is good and various, it’s the Shard card system that elevates FragPunk from shooter to an excellent one.

Shard playing cards are basically tweaks that come into play every spherical, with the playing cards various of their affect from the minimal to the extra extravagant. As you play, you’ll earn shard factors which might then be dished out into the three randomized playing cards which are dealt at the start of every spherical. These playing cards are then put into play for the upcoming spherical, creating some frantic and infrequently amusing firefights.

One spherical may even see all of your ammo loaded into one magazine, permitting the sub machine weapons to utterly pepper the enemy, while one other may even see you activate a card that grants your crew small heads, or perhaps a large turtle in your again to deflect any harm coming from behind. The playing cards are continuously altering, and it makes every spherical really feel contemporary and each sport you play really feel enjoyable and unpredictable in one of the best ways. The playing cards are even capable of have an effect on the map with thick fog being solid over one bomb web site, or erecting a wall, blocking the route to a different. On the time of writing, there are properly over 150 completely different shard playing cards, every able to reshaping the sport in thrilling methods.

Enjoyable Is The Title Of The Sport

The selection of Lancers is nice too. Each feels well-designed and distinctive, with every one providing one thing completely different, making you regulate your playstyle to the skills of your chosen Lancer. I tended to rotate closely between Jaguar and Hollowpoint. Not as a result of they’re any higher than the others, Zephyr, Kismet, and Corona see loads of playtime, however I discovered Hollowpoint’s utility complemented my playstyle.

The talents on supply really feel tailor-made to every lancer’s design, with Hollowpoint possessing a one-shot railgun, deployable traps to detect close by enemies or a thick-walled smokescreen that strikes ahead, serving to you reposition or push ahead on enemies. Every lancer has their very own three distinctive talents, and it’s loads of enjoyable to discover video games with them, whether or not you’re sliding round with Axel and his shotgun guitar or sending out mud tornadoes and Serket. They’re all a lot enjoyable to fiddle with, and it’s addictive to repeatedly experiment with every character’s equipment. It’s only a disgrace that there’s fairly a little bit of playtime wanted to unlock extra lancers with out spending actual cash, given their price.

One nice function that FragPunk launched to its Shard Conflict mode is a game-deciding duel. This occurs when the 2 groups can’t be separated after six rounds (or 10 in ranked), with the scores tied, gamers will likely be thrust right into a one-on-one duel. Your crew chooses positions, after which the primary participant is put in an enclosed map for a struggle to the loss of life, with the winner staying on to struggle the crew’s subsequent participant, persevering with till one crew has been worn out utterly, with the victorious crew profitable the duel, in addition to the entire shard conflict sport. It’s a neat strategy to time up shut video games, and the stakes within the one-on-one duels really feel extremely tense.

What Else Is On Provide?

FragPunk provides greater than the usual Shard Conflict mode. As soon as gamers hit stage 30, they will begin to tackle FragPunk Ranked mode. There are additionally variety of conventional and enjoyable modes to discover, with the usual crew loss of life, deathmatch and kill confirmed, in addition to extra quirky modes like one-shot and melee-only. Every of those modes is loads of enjoyable to become involved in and might really feel like refreshing break from the extra tense battles of Shard Conflict, the one downside being that these arcade modes are on rotation and never accessible the entire time, so when you fancied leaping in to snipers solely you make be in for a protracted wait till it rotates again spherical.

There’s additionally a zombie virus mode referred to as Outbreak, which sees gamers battle in opposition to different contaminated gamers throughout a number of rounds. As soon as killed by an contaminated participant, you then flip into the contaminated and assist seek out the remaining survivors. It sounds enjoyable on paper, however the precise execution is fairly poor. The video games final a really very long time, and the cumbersome well being of the parasites and skills lead to a slightly unenjoyable expertise. It took a very long time to get into the sport, and after enjoying it, I can perceive why not many gamers are eager to dive again into it. It could be sport mode sooner or later, however in its present state, it wants a good quantity of labor performed to it.

Sadly, like many free-to-play video games, the storefront and in-game forex are a little bit of a minefield with a number of unlockable gadgets tied to completely different currencies and completely different loot packing containers littering the sport. It may be onerous to maintain monitor of what forex buys what. There’s additionally a premium go and battle go accessible for these seeking to unlock higher rewards and equipment, a number of the gun skins look nice, however loads of it’s underwhelming, with a disappointing choice of cosmetics that appear to rely totally on easy colour palette swaps, making the rewards really feel a little bit naked bones. Hopefully, as the sport continues to develop, the accessible skins will begin to be extra various and distinct, alongside different rewards.

Remaining Ideas

FragPunk is a incredible addition to the hero-shooter style. Its gunplay is snappy and enjoyable, and the shard card system is an absolute delight to play with. It seems like a shooter constructed across the core concept of enjoyable and, because of this, brings gamers an excellent on-line shooter that’s simple to select up however extremely onerous to place down. The fixed bombardment of recent and thrilling playing cards and tense firefights helps make FragPunk a contender for the throne as an alternative of a throwaway imitation.

Matt Hill

Matt is long-time PlayStation fan and gamer, and has been contributing to PSX for over a yr.

Associated