FragPunk Is Helping Me Fall Back In Love With Multiplayer Gaming

The thrill of the competition...

Most of my life, I've been a single-player gamer. There have been games that have pulled me into the world of online gaming, with the likes of Call of Duty: World at War through to Vanguard (Hoping in and out between), League of Legends, Uncharted 2, Rogue Company, Rocket League and one of my all-time favourites, Titanfall 2.

I never really fell into the Battle Royale hype and struggled to connect with Fortnite the way that so many others did. I stuck to what I knew and would try other games as they came out, like Overwatch, Apex Legends and Marvel Rivals. They were all fine, but none of them managed to win me over. I started to think perhaps the multiplayer shooter was behind me, at least that was the case until I sank my teeth into Bad Guitar Studio's free-to-play shooter, FragPunk.

The central game mode for FragPunk is Shard Clash, which works very similar to Valorant and Counter Strike, where 2 teams of 5 face off against each other, one team looking to plant a convertor at site A or B and the other team looking to defend those sites, the first team to win 4 rounds wins. If there's a stalemate where both teams are tied 3-3, you launch into a duel, which sees the team face off 1v1 with the winner and their remaining health staying on until the other team is eliminated.

Outside of Shard Clash, there are rotating game modes such as Kill Confirmed, Free-For-All, Snipers Deathmatch and a few more. Since the core gameplay loop is so fun, they're all enjoyable games to hop in, but it's a shame that they aren't there as a permanent option. One day, you might boot it up, hoping to jump into a Team Deathmatch, only to find the current rotation has One Shot.

Adding to the gameplay options, FragPunk even has an outbreak mode, but honestly, the game time is overly long, with too many rounds, and the infected parasite's health is far too high. After spending a good while trying to find a game and getting to play through it once, I don't think I'll ever revisit it again unless it gets a major facelift.

The gunplay is satisfyingly smooth, backed by fluid character movement, which gives the combat a refined arcade shooter feel, similar to Call of Duty, but pumped up by character abilities, which can range from planting electrified proximity traps to sending out dust tornadoes. The guns on offer all feel great, each packing a punch, with each feeling viable depending on your lancer, shard loadout and map, but the real draw of the game is the absurd shard card system which empathises the Fun in FragPunk's gameplay and keeps matches feeling continually enjoyable.

The shard cards are vastly different and can be as simple as buffing shotguns' damage or loading all your bullets into one magazine, to the wild and best like literally ripping off your health bar and swapping it with someone else, or the King of Eggs which lets you lay an egg of health after crouching for 10 seconds. They're all a lot of fun to play with, and seeing how they impact the round is thrilling. I'm a big fan of Turtleback just because it straps a giant turtle to your back that negates all damage done to you from behind, plus it's fun to see your teammates running around with silly turtles trapped to them.

FragPunk is such a blast to play. The map design is great, and all the lancers feel like viable options. It's not perfect, and the in-game economy feels a bit overcomplicated, but it's a game that champions fun above all else. The gameplay loop is solid, the combat feels great, and the silliness of the Shard Cards is addictive to mess around with.

FragPunk pulled me in with its style and premise, but it has successfully kept me around thanks to its enjoyable gameplay and inventive ideas, and I can't wait to play even more.