Fragpunk Review

I’m not sure if many will agree with me but the state of the first person shooter genre on consoles seems to be pretty piss poor right now. Whilst Call Of Duty seemingly continues to dominate the space, we don’t seem to be seeing much else in the market. After the failure of the last Battlefield title, we won’t see another until either later this year or early next. There appears to be a few more on the horizon soon such as Splitgate 2 having its Open Beta at the end of May, but Fragpunk has finally arrived on consoles after a short delay.

Manipulate The Playground

Fragpunk is a first person hero shooter that prides itself on manipulation using cards in the heat of battle. The main shard card mode pits five versus five through a round based battle similar to Search and Destroy on Call Of Duty. With thirteen different characters to choose from all with differing abilities, you can use these to your advantage in conjunction with shard cards to manipulate the map and players in battle.

There are over twenty weapons to choose from within the game from your standard assault rifles, SMG’s, LMG’s, marksman and sniper rifles as well as shotguns. Pistols can form your sidearm alongside melee options should you wish. Trust me it’ll take a few hours to find your feet in this game with which weapons you like to use and also characters, once you unlock them.

They Want Your Monies

Unfortunately with any free to play title, they are going to want your money from you somewhere along the line. Obviously you can get by and not spend any, I haven’t just yet but I have been tempted by the battle pass. I have a horrible habit of investing in battle passes and not seeing them through, so I am holding fire for this one, excuse the pun.

Unlocking characters is a real grind and half of the ones on offer are locked out of use. You can unlock them with gold earnt through playing the game. I’ve managed to unlock three within 20 hours of play, so I’d imagine you’re looking at 60-80 hours to unlock the full fleet on offer. You can purchase the gold to unlock them indvidually or pay for their own monthly subscription for £9.99. This grants full access to all characters, enough gold to purchase the battle pass or other goodies and some XP boosts. Similar to Fortnite Crew in that respect, but whether it is worth it is one for you to decide.

Cosmetics Galore

Character skins, weapon skins, kill counters, stickers, emotes and so much more. There is a ton to unlock and a lot of it can honestly be obtained through simply playing and using earnt currency to choose what you want. The store will give cosmetics that are only available to be aquired through spending real money, but nothing is pay to win and that is the main thing here. There are login bonuses, challenges and more than can trigger seasonal events to just grab even more goodies. It may be overbearing and intrusive for some but for me it kept me going back each day for the rewards.

Visuals & Audio

If you’re a fan of vivid colours then you’ll be right at home with Fragpunk. Everything from the menus to the cosmetics throughout the game has a splash of vibrant colour throughout. Visually the game isn’t thrusting the capabilities games like Call Of Duty has, but it is pretty enough to look at. Character models and their abilities bring plenty of variance in the field of battle. Smoke clouds, walls, elemental attacks and more can make every gunfight and round seem slightly different.

When it comes to the audio the only bugbear I have is the footsteps. The volume of footsteps always appears the same and at times you have no idea which direction they are coming from. All other audio appears to perform as expected with characters and their own one liners, gunfire and grenades and so on. A puncy soundtrack knits in nicely alongside the game which suits the atmosphere of the experience.

Final Thoughts

Fragpunk is a solid entry into the first person shooter genre. It is tough to tell whether this one will become a permanent fixture in the live service space or dissolve in the future. After 20 or so hours with this one, I am still enjoying the shard card and ranked modes. The true test of time is whether they keep changing up the formula, characters and weaponry to keep the appeal. If I had to explain this game in my own words it would be along the lines of CSGO and Valorant with its own unique twist.

With the game being completely free to play on consoles and PC, it is well worth a try if you’re into your hero shooters or anything FPS related. I really struggled with crossplay on due to PC players potentially having faster reaction times, but there is the option to switch this off. As with any live service game, be prepared to spend a bit if you fancy some nicer skins or even unlocking features a bit quicker. Overall though, it is a shooter that is brings hours of fun if it hooks you in with the round based objective play.