Table of Contents
Table of Contents
From idea to actuality
Cards and clashes
Competition breeds innovation
The hero shooter style stays as aggressive as ever. Certain titles, resembling Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2, proceed to evolve. Others like Concord haven’t been practically as profitable. Even with some occasional flops, any new providing goals to make its mark in a extremely crowded area. The subsequent contender up is Fragpunk, an upcoming 5v5 hero shooter from Bad Guitar Studio and Netease.
Fragpunk blends sci-fi and cyberpunk themes, together with fast-paced gunplay, to maintain gamers on their toes each spherical. Most notably, it includes a Shard Card system the place groups choose from a randomized pool of over 100 playing cards, a few of which alter mechanics and environments, to make matches as unpredictable as doable.
I spoke with Xin Chang, artistic director and producer of Fragpunk, to study extra in regards to the venture. He gave me some backstory on Hangzhou-based Bad Guitar Studio, which Chang helms, and the way it went from a workforce of 10 to 100. Lots is using on Fragpunk’s success, on condition that it’s additionally the debut title for many members of the event workforce.
FragPunk – Official Release Date Trailer | Game Awards 2024
From idea to actuality
Fragpunk merges the adrenaline of first-person shooter fight with the unpredictability of a roguelike. Two opposing groups choose characters, referred to as Lancers, with particular perks and skills. From there, a match turns right into a frantic race to remove foes and plant/defuse bombs at particular websites. In between rounds, groups may spend factors to make use of Shard Cards, with varied results starting from regenerative therapeutic and elevated motion velocity to utterly eradicating all doorways in a degree or turning a participant the wrong way up.
“Our team took inspiration from the successes of other FPS games such as Counter-Strike and Valorant,” Chang tells Digital Trends. “We knew we wanted to make a fast-paced game because it’s central in making our unique feature shine through. Fragpunk is, I hope, a great combination of what makes competitive FPS fun while also bringing a novel feature and strategic depth to the mix with Shard Cards.”
Netease
Fragpunk is anticipated to have 13 Lancers at launch, all with distinctive abilities and supreme strikes. For occasion, Broker’s Cherry Bomb creates vitality blasts, whereas his Smokestack Lightning talent (i.e. smoke grenade) is extra defensive in nature. He additionally has an final skill, Goddard’s Vengeance, the place he blows up foes with a rocket launcher. Some characters are just like Broker in that their ultimates additionally grant them particular weapons for a restricted time. Examples embrace Hollowpoint’s Meteora rail gun that fires single-shot high-powered rounds and Axon’s Electric Guitar that permits him to blast enemies explosives.
“Our Lancers were born from gameplay-first brainstorming: ‘What element feels missing in a match?’” Chang says. “Abilities evolved through playtests — some ideas were scrapped for being too disruptive, while others [were retained] because they enabled unexpected synergies with cards. The process is long and sometimes difficult, but as long as the Lancers bring a refreshing experience for our players, then it’s all worth it.”
Chang even listed their high three characters from different sci-fi media that might match nicely in Fragpunk’s setting: “David Martinez (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners) is definitely up there because he’s a rebellious soul with high-tech combat styles. I’d also include Jinx (League of Legends and Arcane) due to her anarchic energy and explosive gadgets. And, of course, Neo (The Matrix films), since his bullet-dodging and reality-bending powers are perfect for our card chaos concept.”
Cards and clashes
The most fascinating facet of Fragpunk is the Shard Card system. The giant pool of playing cards permits gamers to strategize in between rounds, figuring out which choices to allocate factors into. As Chang tells me, “Fragpunk’s Shard Cards have special ‘rule-breaking’ powers, including changing the weather, landscape, weapon and even characters in the game.”
Most importantly, groups can choose as much as three playing cards every spherical to provide you with distinctive and stunning combos. “One of my favorite card combos involves the use of Blade Master and Turtleback,” Chang says. “The former lets you block attacks from the front and the latter blocks shots from behind. When these two cards come into effect together, you’re able to block bullets from the front and back, and enemies can only damage you by shooting at your legs and feet!”
Netease
Since playing cards are randomized every spherical, it creates a component of uncertainty and even pleasure. Of course, it might probably additionally result in frustrations since luck performs an enormous position. “Randomness is inherent to our Shard Card system,” Chang says. “However, we did notice that some less interesting cards appeared too frequently during testing. That’s why we included a mechanic called ‘Relic’ that allows players to retain a card between rounds if they find something that they like.”
Given all of the above — 13 characters, 17 weapon varieties, and over 100 Shard Cards at launch — Fragpunk is crammed to the brim with potential combos and synergies. That stated, it may be a nightmare to stability or observe potential exploits. Chang agrees and shares one explicit subject that the workforce encountered.
“When designing the ‘World Flip’ card at the beginning, we wanted to really turn the whole level upside down. But when we started to integrate the card with the levels, we experienced tons of bugs. After [brainstorming] for a whole week, we had to change our way of thinking and turn the character upside down instead (as seen in our trailer for The Game Awards). So you can see how wild our thoughts can be sometimes!”
Competition breeds innovation
The success of hero shooters relies on how studios preserve their participant base engaged for a lot of months. “Fragpunk has competitive and strategic elements, but we also want to bridge casual and competitive crowds,” Chang says. The card system lowers the barrier for entry since anybody [might be lucky enough to get] a game-changing combo, however mastery comes from leveraging RNG strategically. For instance in ranked Shard Clash matches, considering fastidiously when selecting your workforce’s playing cards and banning your enemy’s playing cards can [create opportunities] to flip a dropping match right into a comeback.”
To that finish, Bad Guitar Studio targeted on sooner time-to-kill (TTK) ratio, versus a slower tempo. “Faster TTK rewards sharp reflexes and positioning, while slower TTK emphasizes sustained accuracy and teamwork,” Chang says. “Fragpunk leans more toward faster TTK to complement its high-octane card combos.”
It’s clear that the workforce desires to face out among the many competitors, however that competitors consists of video games inside its personal writer. Fragpunk is being printed by Netease, which can also be behind Marvel Rivals. I used to be curious if there was a wholesome rivalry brewing amongst Netease’s improvement groups.
“We do try out each other’s games sometimes, but most of the time the teams work separately,” Chang says. “Healthy competition drives the genre forward, and we’re all players at heart — so we’re excited to see how different studios interpret the hero shooter space!”
Netease
Chang can also be a realist who acknowledges that the hero shooter style is a bit overcrowded proper now and Fragpunk has to do one thing particular to entice gamers. “We recognize that the hero shooter market is highly competitive, but we’re highly motivated by our passion for this genre,” Chang says. “Other than the Shard Card system, we designed a Duel feature [as a tiebreaker] to highlight each player’s individual skill. Also, apart from the standard Shard Clash mode, we will be introducing a number of different concepts to enrich player experience such as a ‘one-shot-one-kill’ mode. There’s much more to discover once we officially launch, and we are confident that we will stand out from our competitors.”
Fragpunk has all of the instruments wanted to maintain matches refreshing and its participant base engaged. Now it’s as much as the luck of the draw as gamers determine its final destiny.
Fragpunk launches on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on March 6.