FragPunk Is Making Casuals Competitive

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home March 24, 2025 9 Views 8 Min Read
FragPunk Is Making Casuals Competitive
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Look, nobody likes to lose in any video game, right? But some online games have such colorful vibes and fun mechanics that they help newcomers feel less isolated from the pros, keeping the stakes low enough to not crush your soul if things don’t go well. That’s why the graffiti and comic-book aesthetic of FragPunk immediately caught my eye, as a pretty casual FPS player.

Jaguar Fragpunk-1

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FragPunk’s So Polished It Puts Other Games To Shame

FragPunk has launched in an excellent state.

Let’s be clear about one thing first: my aim sucks. In the past, I practiced and invested long hours into competitive shooters that could help me improve my aiming skills; Counter-Strike, Valorant, Overwatch, Marvel Rivals, Cooking Mama 5… name them, I’ve tried them. And yet I still can’t, for the love of God, shoot people in the face.

Playing With Some Good Eggs

zephyr in fragpunk running

With this in mind, I started playing the first few hours of FragPunk, quite at ease with its seemingly cheerful tone. During one of my first matches, the game regaled me with a card-choosing mechanic that allowed me to make my enemies’ heads grow bigger while also letting me wear a Turtle as a backpack; in the next game, the King Of Eggs card forced me to see my TheGamer colleagues Sam Hallahan and Allyson Cochran lay some eggs out in a display of public indecency.

Everything seemed fun yet easy to grasp, or at least enough for me to get invested without expecting anything in return nor stakes to get anxious about. A blue girl that can scan the environment for enemies? That’s fun. A cool dude who can summon a rocket launcher out of nowhere? Works for me! I was having tons of fun discovering new Lancers to try, and wondering what silly trick the game would pull next. Then I turned a corner and got shot in the mouth.

Okay, well, it happens, right? As casual as this game is, it’s still a shooter, so it only makes sense – but it still felt like a pretty casual time to me. This is why the next sixteen headshots I got back to back were as surprising as the first one.

After some screaming, something I wasn’t expecting happened to me: I found myself completely locked in, to the point where I even became silent. Suddenly, the turtle backpacks were crucial protection against a group of people hell-bent on shooting me in the back, the enlarged heads of rivals were opportunities to obliterate them. And the eggs? The eggs are now a saving grace and a necessity, one of the few ways I could heal myself in times of need.

A Merciless Approach Brings The Most Satisfaction

The profile screen for Hollowpoint in FragPunk.

This is where the genius of FragPunk comes to light; instead of holding your hand for a few hours and making you believe that it gets better with time and effort, the game immediately throws you to the wolves while laughing at you. Even better, it encourages you to laugh at yourself.

From the vibrant colors to the aesthetic choices behind every character and weapon design, the game creates a fun atmosphere that compels you to play with your friends, only to see you inevitably get demolished by a rival group. However, before you can even react to it, the new match has already begun, which is frankly amazing; FragPunk doesn’t take winning or losing seriously, so why should you?

This, in turn, took me to places I didn’t expect. I started reading every weapon’s stat, meditated on which character better fits my playstyle and even went out of my comfort zone as often as possible to become more versatile. The game didn’t stop being fun and chaotic, and the silliness and color that gives FragPunk its personality turned out to be a welcome presence in the face of defeat, and even a better companion on a satisfyingly rewarding victory.

I don’t want to play my shooting games like we’re agents in a mission, military forces, or superheroes; all I needed to get invested in the more competitive nature of FragPunk was to see the combat organically intertwined with a welcoming environment and some silly, randomized mechanics sprinkled on top, so the whiplash of its true nature would hit me harder. In the end, playing with friends while laying an egg on the floor helped me to enjoy being competitive. And no, I’m not touching Ranked matches, I’m fine right here.

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