Card-Based FPS FragPunk Aims To Put Fun Before Balance

It can feel like first-person shooters have forgotten how to have fun. In an age of online matchmaking, ranked ladders, and esports aspirations, balance is sovereign supreme. But surely there’s room too for a game that isn’t afraid to serve up something sillier. A shooter, perhaps, like FragPunk.

Bad Guitar Studios’ upcoming 5v5 FPS takes the attack-defend structure and character abilities of a game like Valorant, blends it with the mobile gunplay of older Call of Duty games, and then upends an entire dumpster of ridiculous, rule-rewriting cards on top. A simple one might add fire damage to shotgun shells. But cards can also do things like douse the map in torrents of water which hasten movement in one direction and slow it in the other. Or they can strap a cute turtle on your back to act as a shield. Practical and adorable. More than anything, they’re there to make you rethink your FPS expectations, every single round.

Fun first, then competition

FragPunk is currently gearing up for an October beta phase. Ahead of that, Restart went hands-on with the FragPunk alpha and, at Gamescom 2024, had the chance to speak with creative director Xin Chang about how the game balances entertainment with earnest competition, his favorite card combos, and FragPunk’s other, unusual additions to that perennially popular gaming pastime of pointing crosshairs and pulling triggers.

“The first thing is that we’re making the game that we want to play,” Chang says. “We are making a game we love to play, and I think making it fun is the primary goal. After making the fun, then we will try to make it competitive. But the fun is first place. The card system, it provides more fun to the whole game. And I think we can make a change, by using this kind of thing, to the whole FPS genre.”

That hierarchy becomes apparent within minutes of your first FragPunk match. Usually around the time the enemy team starts charging at you with bullet-deflecting swords instead of their usual SMGs and shotguns. Switch-ups and shifts that would typically be relegated to time-limited events in other shooters occur almost every round in FragPunk. Outlandish powers and card combos are a core part of the game. You and your opponents will rarely feel equal. But Chang is eager to stress that balance won’t be overlooked entirely.

“Balancing is also a very important part of our design principles, because we don't want to make things too OP,” Chang says. “We are still a PvP shooter and balancing is quite important. So we made several things to make it balanced. The first is that every card has a cost, and if it is more powerful, the cost will be higher. If it is less powerful, the cost will be smaller.”

The card economy is one of FragPunk’s methods for asserting a semblance of control over its own chaotic nature. In the standard quick play mode, the two teams are offered respective sets of three cards before each round. To activate them, team members must spend points collectively. These points are earned slowly each round, with bonuses granted for scoring kills or playing the objective. They’re precious, so spending them wisely is important. A team might even forgo extra powers altogether one round in the hopes of unleashing a greater effect later on. In addition to this, Chang also notes that FragPunk’s ranked mode has something else in its deck to ensure matches are a touch fairer.

“It's not in the alpha test but it’ll be in the beta test,” Chang teases. “I think I can say that we will give our ranked mode in the beta test. You will see how we make the balance in that [mode]. But it's a little secret! So I won't tell you more details about it, but we do something to make it balanced.

“[In quick play] we can make it more fun. We can let players try different combos of the cards and get them to find a very interesting combo. It may have a very low possibility, but when they make it, they will feel very happy. It's very powerful and interesting, but it's for casual games.”

Combo (game) breaker

Discovering how cards synergise is one of FragPunk’s best learning elements. In quick play, your pre-round choices are randomized. That might not be fair, but where fun is concerned, it’s an inspired decision. Instead of falling into set strategies, you’re consistently forced to handle unconventional combos. And when one generates something wildly overpowered? It’s a single-round delight or disaster, depending on your perspective. Triple-sized LMG magazines combined with explosive ammunition? It’s enough to make a defender weep with joy.

“For me, I like the Big Head [card],” says Chang. “But what attracts me more is a card called Offense Defense which can switch the role [of the two teams]. And another card is called Site Deletion, which can delete one [bomb] site. This is a card counter. So if you choose Site Deletion, you feel you are stronger as a defender. But the other side, they play Offense Defense, and you switch! That's a kind of strategy, so I love this card.”

Some of the card combos players discovered during FragPunk’s first alpha even took the developers by surprise. The Bio Warrior card resurrects fallen players as melee-only zombies once per round. Already pretty ridiculous for a single-life, round-based FPS. But combine it with Weapon or Life – a card which allows you to discard your primary weapon to survive one instance of lethal damage – and you’ve got three lives to your opponents’ one. Broken? Sure. But Chang and his team were delighted to see it utilized.

More than one gun

Rote weapon selection is another FPS element that FragPunk is trying to pistol whip into liveliness. Instead of costing money to purchase, all weapons are available in any round you please. The caveat is that you only have one copy of each. Survive the round after picking your go-to shotgun and you’ll keep it available. Die, and it’s gone for the rest of that half.

“The primary purpose of this design is that we want players to try different guns,” Chang says. “We don't want them to focus on one gun like [Counter-Strike’s] AK or M4 for the whole round. We want them to switch to the other guns, to try different guns, because each gun in our game, we try to make them as equal in power as we can.

“Each gun has their own favorite range, their own favorite place to be used. You should use the guns according to the map, according to the cards you use, according to other strategies. We just want players to try all the guns.”

It’s a decision that has also led to some interesting weapon inclusions. In addition to traditional sidearms, you also have the option of equipping a pistol that fires flashbang grenades or vision-blocking smokes. Valuable utility, if you don’t mind having nothing to fall back on when your primary runs dry.

Flexibility and adaptability are baked into FragPunk’s endlessly shifting foundations. Even where it does decide to be more restrictive, it remains fully prepared to break its own rules. Each character, for example, is limited to one per team, but activate the right card and you can ignore that restriction entirely.

Ranked mode, and the expectation of equal competition that it confers, may be FragPunk’s biggest hurdle. The planned October beta will therefore be the ideal chance to see if close competition can thrive in a game where the rules of play act more like loose guidelines at the best of times.

Our thanks to Xin Chang for taking the time to speak with Restart about FragPunk. Learn more about FragPunk (including how its brilliant tiebreaking duels play out) in our alpha preview.

FragPunk

Release Date: 2025

• Windows
• Xbox Series