Upcoming Roguelike Hero Shooter FragPunk Ending Its Closed Alpha Soon

Bad Guitar has announced the coming end of the closed alpha for their upcoming hero shooter, with a twist, Fragpunk.

The developer shared this message on Twitter:

“We’re on the final stretch of our Closed Alpha

You only have until 23:29 PT on July 1st for matchmaking, with servers shutting down at exactly 23:59 PT. Make sure to get your final matches in before this cutoff.

Missed the Alpha? Wishlist us on Steam to stay in the loop!”

Originally unveiled in last month’s Xbox Games Showcase, Fragpunk is being developed by a fresh new studio called Bad Guitar, and published by NetEase. The conceit behind this game is it’s very much like Valorant and Overwatch, with the twist being the use of cards.

The announcement trailer gave some viewers the wrong impression, so to be clear, Fragpunk is not a deckbuilder. Instead of collecting these cards to use them in the future, you have to use the three cards given at the start of each round in the round itself. You also have to earn the ability to use those cards, by building up pools of resources.

This preview from PCGamesN makes a comparison to Slay The Spire, because of the roguelike nature of the cards. Card effects can vary from the mundane, like adding a bullet sponge shield to protect you, to the powerful, like summoning frost to attack your enemies.

Xin Chang, who is the game’s producer and creative director, concurred that this rogue like twist was their intent, saying:

“I’m a very big fan of competitive games and roguelike games. I’ve been trying to add the variety, randomness, and suspense of roguelikes to the FPS genre.”

However, this and TheGamer’s preview also share one interesting observation. The game is actually very beginner friendly, which sounds like the exact combination that could make this game idea successful.

While closed alpha is deep in development, the glowing previews for this game suggest that this is a title that is to be reckoned with. While Sony’s Concord had a huge target on its back, with some skepticism coming from the single-player-loving PlayStation fanbase themselves, Fragpunk is more likely to find friendlier players on Xbox.

But really, it’s on Steam where Fragpunk, as most other upcoming multiplayer shooters, find their core audience nowadays. We may wait a little longer for this game to release, but we may be talking about this game in the future like Valorant and Apex Legends.

You can watch the Fragpunk announcement trailer below.