FragPunk came out of nowhere. Maybe it’s just me and the fact I don’t play many shooters, but I don’t remember seeing it announced, any marketing, nothing at all. Then one day, Evergreen Editor Santi Leguiza mentioned we should play it together, and it was free, so I decided, okay, let’s give it a try.
Cue countless nights of screaming, chaos, egg-laying, and plenty of tears. That’s just Santi, but the game turned out to be a lot of fun.
It’s an incredibly stylish hero-shooter, leaning into colourful aesthetics, comic-book-esque effects, and a range of modes with fast-paced gameplay in mind. It’s not often I get pulled into a multiplayer game, but this one has me hooked, and it’s so easy to jump into that I just keep wanting to go back every day.
But forget all that for now – I want to talk about keyrings.
It’s Like Playing Dress Up, But With Guns
So you’re telling me I can unlock funny little charms? And I can stick those funny little charms on my pink gun? Like, wherever I want? I’m in.
Maybe I’m a simple creature, but I can’t express how much more enjoyment I get out of having a bright gun with a skateboard, a D20, two different kinds of Game Boy – one of which counts how many players I’ve killed with said pink gun – and a sticker of an unimpressed looking cat.
Actually, no, I can express it: it adds a ridiculous amount of enjoyment. Even with all of the style and the great gameplay loop, I could see myself fizzling out if I was stuck with boring old gun-looking guns, or even if it was just skins you could slap on and loosely call it customised. No, I’m excited to keep unlocking new charms so I can switch them out, or add them onto more and more guns, and build a whole damn armoury of trinket weapons. Let me live how I want to live.
You can unlock duplicate charms and stickers, but that just means I could have three Game Boys. Or four Game Boys.
It Might Not Be New, But It Is To Me
And yeah, maybe other games do this too, but I haven’t played them. I’ve heard this compared to Valorant and CS:GO, but I haven’t touched either of those games and I don’t plan to. But even then, I don’t think the style of those games appeals to me like FragPunk does. The charms you unlock are just one part of the vast customisation options the game gives you, but for me, they encompass everything that I find loveable about the game. It’s silly, it’s colourful, it’s fun.
So yes, I will continue to see what new little charms and stickers I get. I will continue to stick a kill-counting fish on my pistol. I even have a knife that looks like a doughnut – perfect for sprinkling in some sweet kills to glaze your ego.
If you like the shooty shooty games, and better yet, like customising things in a world that isn’t intended to simulate dull, bland military styles, then FragPunk is a fantastic thing to get sucked into. Might I even say it’s like the Splatoon of hero-shooters? Yes. Yes, I might. No further questions.
- Released
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March 6, 2025
- ESRB
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T For Teen // Violence, Blood