Competitive shooter Fragpunk wowed me with its game-changing Shard Cards, but I can't stand the aggressive monetization

In the crowded competitive shooter market, Fragpunk is a breath of fresh air. This is a more casual first-person shooter (FPS) than the likes of Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant, geared towards generating quick bursts of adrenaline-fueled fun rather than forcing you to contend with any particularly complex strategy.

This is a blessing and a curse, as it leads to snappy matches that are a blast in its flagship casual mode but often leaves things feeling frustratingly random in a proper competitive format. This wouldn't necessarily be a deal-breaker for those players who prefer to keep things relaxed, but there are other issues that drag the experience down.

Card counter strike

If you’ve ever played a match of Counter-Strike, then you’ll know roughly what to expect here as Fragpunk follows the same kind of format. Two teams of five players face off in multiple rounds, with the attacking side seeking to place a converter (read: bomb) at a designated site on the map. For the defenders, the goal is to prevent it from going off at all costs - usually by killing the entire enemy team before it’s placed or defusing it at the last moment.

Sides swap at half time, with the first team to win four rounds crowned the victor. So far nothing special, but developer Bad Guitar Studio mixes things up through its marquee addition: Shard Cards. These are powerful buffs that can fundamentally change how each game plays out.

In the standard Shard Clash mode, both teams are offered a selection of three random cards between rounds. To activate a card, the team needs to spend a certain number of Shard Points which are awarded to each player depending on their performance in the match. As the most powerful cards often require five or so points to activate, multiple players will need to pick them in order to reap the benefits - a clever way to reward more closely coordinated teams.

The effects of each shard card vary massively, opening the door to loads of exciting gameplay possibilities. Some of my personal favorites include one that hilariously teleports damaged foes back to their spawn point and another that covers the entire map in snow and ice - causing both teams to slide around chaotically.

Of course, I can't help but also mention a card that allows your team to lay eggs, yes eggs, by crouching for a few seconds and then consume them for a quick health boost. Is this the kind of randomness that you would want to decide a tight competitive match? Absolutely not, but it’s a blast if you’re not taking things seriously.

Who needs balance, anyway?

If the Shard Cards weren’t enough, Fragpunk also features thirteen hero-like Lancers with their own special abilities. Each character has three and they range all the way from borderline useless (I’m looking at Corona’s underwhelming dash and Jaguar’s puny electric traps here) to completely overpowered. There are even multiple characters that can turn nearly invisible, letting you get behind the enemy team in seconds.

I favored the ancient undead mummy Serket for this purpose, as she can scout out nearby enemies as a hard-to-see beacon before teleporting to it in a flash. In her cloaked state enemies are displayed as these vague tornadoes, presumably to conceal which way they’re facing so it’s a little harder to appear right next to them undetected, though I am still routinely able to wipe out three or four players from the rear without much opposition.

The character Broker then boasts a one-hit rocket launcher, while Hollowpoint has a super powerful sniper rifle that can be summoned with the click of a button. Every Lancer has an eye-catching design, which shines thanks to the cartoony cel-shaded art-style, and given the sheer breadth of themes they embody there’s going to be at least one that mechanically or aesthetically appeals to you.

Unfortunately, the Lancers do bring the game’s dire monetization to the fore. Outside of the small handful that you start with, they cost about $5 / £4 worth of Fragpunk Coins - the most valuable of the three in-game currencies - each. You can buy them with the more common Gold too, but they’re incredibly expensive and would take weeks, if not months, of grinding to obtain. Some of the strongest characters are locked behind this paywall, which leaves a bit of a sour taste.

Worse still, almost every part of the main menu seems like it's trying to sell you something and is clogged with endless tabs talking about events, challenges, bonuses, limited-time store offers, and more. This is on top of a pushy subscription service (which gives you monthly bonuses and access to every Lancer as long as you’re subscribed) and two types of battle pass, though I can’t really complain about the latter as it’s reasonably priced and has a decent number of rewards.

Not here for the long haul

The selection of maps here is solid, but none particularly stand out in terms of layout or theme, and the weapons are broadly fine in design terms. There’s definitely some more balancing work to be done between the nine weapon categories, though, as the two submachine guns and assault rifles seem disproportionately powerful.

There’s practically no reason not to use them, as they excel at seemingly any range. In contrast, the marksman weapons (a middle point between assault rifles and sniper rifles) are pathetically weak and, as a result, almost never seen in matches. Still, this could be easily remedied with a few patches.

Less simple to fix are the arcade modes, which are generally poor. The likes of Free for All and Sniper Deathmatch are completely uninspired and the bizarre Outbreak mode (the game’s take on Halo’s thrilling Infection) is comically badly designed. Every match that I played devolved into the human team camping in the same handful of impenetrable corners, leaving the zombie side unable to do much more than wait for the match timer to tick down to zero. It’s not remotely fun for either group and I’m already noticing queue times increasing, presumably as other players begin to realize this.

This all leads to an online game that can be a delight at time but fails to deliver a well-rounded experience. As it’s a free-to-play game I’d still recommend checking out Fragpunk if you’re a fan of the genre and want a few hours of entertainment, especially if you have a few friends willing to squad up, but I doubt that it’s going to become an FPS staple in the years ahead.

Should I play Fragpunk?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

There are few accessibility features in Fragpunk and no dedicated accessibility menu. The game can be played with either keyboard and mouse or a controller. It also offers a dedicated colorblind mode and the ability to tweak the appearance of important colors in the settings menu.

How I reviewed Fragpunk

I played Fragpunk for over 15 hours on PC, using my desktop computer with an Nvidia RTX 3060, 32GB of RAM, and an Intel Core I5-11400F. I relied on an Asus ROG Harpe Ace Aim Lab Edition mouse, plus an Endgame Gear KB65HE keyboard. For display output, I used a Sony Inzone M9 II monitor.

Throughout my time with the game I directly compared my experience to my thousands of hours of playtime in other competitive shooters, namely Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant. I also considered the likes of Overwatch, Overwatch 2, and Team Fortress 2 given the conceptual similarity between Fragpunk's Lancers and the heroes of those games.

First reviewed March 2025