I’ve been excited about FragPunk since I played it back at Summer Game Fest. Blending the traditional Valorant-style hero shooter format with Slay the Spire-esque modifiers that change up every round, it’s a unique take on the traditional FPS format. Released on Thursday March 6, the game has certainly drawn impressive numbers on Steam, but its nine different currencies and costly microtransactions have left players frustrated.
As aforementioned, FragPunk is a tactical hero shooter akin to Valorant, which in itself doesn’t sound all that exciting. After each round, however, you’re presented with various different Shard Cards (read modifiers), which you can use to change up the battlefield. You can completely delete bomb sites from the game, stop your enemies from healing each other, or turn dropped weapons into turrets – the choices are endless.
While the FPS game has accrued an impressive record of 54,313 concurrent players at the time of writing, its Steam rating currently sits at 67%, landing it comfortably in the ‘Mixed’ category. The primary reason – as you might expect – is, of course, microtransactions.
FragPunk has a colossal nine currencies on offer in-game, two premium battle passes (premium and ultra, the latter offers unique color variants), and two different memberships (annual and monthly, used to unlock Lancers while giving players access to exclusive skins). As someone who’s played various microtransaction-heavy games – Marvel Rivals most recently – this is a lot to get your head around.
To make matters worse, there are only five Lancers available at launch, meaning most of the game’s roster is locked behind a significant grind – one review claims it’d take around 35 hours to unlock one character. It costs 18,888 Gold to unlock each Lancer, or 488 FragPunk Coins, which are the game’s real-money option.
“Gameplay is fun, but the monetization is horrific. It takes 100+ matches to unlock one character,” reads one review, with another noting that they “can’t find where to start a game due to all the ads for their cosmetics.”
Players have also complained that the game’s movement feels slower than it did during the beta, with one review noting that “the game felt amazing and now it’s garbage. It’s just not fun anymore.”
And it really is a shame. What I loved about FragPunk was the fast-paced, Valorant-esque action. This is day one, however, so hopefully Bad Guitar rolls back the movement changes to be more reflective of the beta. In terms of monetization, well, that’s the way of the world folks. Like it or loathe it, I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
If you’re looking to dive into FragPunk this weekend, check out our list of all the FragPunk characters and their abilities. Alternatively, if the aggressive monetization has put you off, here’s our rundown of the best multiplayer games.
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