Deckbuilding FPS FragPunk gets brand new beta test

Of all the games I saw at Summer Game Fest, FragPunk was perhaps the most exciting. While I’ve fallen out of love with online shooters as of late, its innovative blend of Slay the Spire-style card modifiers and fast-paced Valorant-esque head-popping immediately had me intrigued. While I took it for a spin at SGF, I’ve been desperate to get my hands on it ever since. Now, during the Xbow showcase at the Tokyo Game Show, the team has finally announced the FragPunk closed beta date.

As mentioned, FragPunk isn’t your usual FPS game. While the action is fast-paced and characters have hero-style abilities akin to Valorant, there’s an added twist. After each round, you’re presented with a selection of different cards, all of which modify either the environment around you, or your individual characters.

But they also affect your enemies, too. While it may initially seem like a great idea to cover the entire map in ice, that might not work out too well if the enemy is equally adept at taking advantage of it. Same with the turtle backpacks that soak bullets – they’re great in theory, but they give your enemies some extra defense, too.

The FragPunk closed beta test has been on the cards (ha ha) for a while, but initially the only detail we had was ‘early October.’ Given October is just around the corner (and, by proxy, my birthday), I’ve been waiting for the official release date to drop.

The FragPunk closed beta drops on Wednesday October 9 at 5pm PST / 8pm PST, then Thursday October 10 at 1am BST / 2am CEST. Bad Guitar hasn’t shared an end date for the test just yet. You can sign up to take part here, and note that crossplay is also available.

In the meantime, however, we have a list of all the best multiplayer games, or, alternatively, some free Steam games if you’re looking to save cash.

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