Somebody finally figured out casual Counter-Strike

If somebody asked me how to make Counter-Strike 2 more casual while still keeping its signature trappings—bomb sites, economy, silent walking, low time-to-kill—I'd first ask why they're trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

There is no such thing as kicking back and "relaxing" with a round of CS2. It's extremely difficult, ruthlessly punishes mistakes, the bullets don't shoot straight, and that's how millions of players like it. Several have tried, and each has learned that throwing a towel over CS2's sweaty gunplay runs the risk of eroding its appeal until you might as well be making Call of Duty.

Fragpunk is the first FPS to thread that needle. It's casual Counter-Strike, it's Valorant without ultimates, it's round-based Call of Duty, it's, it's…actually, Fragpunk is so many shooters at once that it's something truly special. There are a hundred little design decisions that make Fragpunk work, but I've identified four brilliant twists on tac shooters that keep stress low and fun high.

Shard Cards (duh)

If you jump into your first Fragpunk match with the ferocity of Counter-Strike, the first sign that you should dial back the sweat is Shard Cards: powerful modifiers randomly drawn and activated by player vote between each round. Shard Cards range from small buffs to unhinged, round-defining rule changes, like a card that deletes one of the bomb sites, another that lets you lay an egg that heals you, or my personal favorite, a card that takes away everybody's guns for a forced round of "knives only." I love how playful they are and how several seem to intentionally riff on traditional FPS server house rules.

Shard Cards are also a cool block of ice over simmering tempers. It's hard to feel like you messed up when you only lost a round because the other team had swords that block bullets. They're so deeply unserious that, at first, their random power seems incompatible with a competitive round-based format, but there's actually a decent amount of strategy involved in choosing them.

The points used to activate cards are essentially Fragpunk's economy—you can bank points for several rounds by not using them or earn extra by winning rounds and racking up kills. Sometimes, frugal spending means you get to activate three cards at once that weigh the next round heavily in your favor.

Unlike CS or Valorant, where the point of a "save round" is to eventually buy a godlike sniper rifle, I save up Shard points so I can trigger the stupidest card possible whenever it appears.

The non-buy menu

As I mentioned, Fragpunk's economy is light and entirely wrapped up in Shard Cards, which means weapon selection gets to be way more chill. I couldn't believe it when I first perused the gun screen and realized I could just grab Fragpunk's equivalent of the AWP immediately. The same goes for all 16 guns at launch—Fragpunk just wants you to play with what's comfortable.

But this aint Call of Duty, so there is a catch. For each category of big gun (assault rifle, SMG, LMG, sniper, marksman rifle) you only get two per half. So if I choose my favorite all-arounder AR, a silenced M4-like called the Discipline, in the first two rounds and die both times, no more free ARs until we switch sides.

I really like the system—there is no shortage of guns, so you'll never be stuck slumming it with just a pistol, but it injects just enough risk that there's an incentive to save big guns for big moments.

Short rounds

Best of seven rounds, 15 minutes. That's the maximum commitment to a match of Quickplay in Fragpunk, and it feels so right. This could be the most impactful change of them all. Every time I've ever put down Rainbow Six Siege for months or a year, it was triggered by the misery of being trapped in a 40-minute slog of a loss.

It's just another reason I can't even pretend to take Fragpunk too seriously. By the time it's clear the other team is better, the match is practically over. Is seven rounds long enough to truly judge skill? Nah, but there is a Ranked mode unlocked at level 30 that's best of 11 instead (still significantly shorter than CS).

No ultimates

The problem with ultimates is that shooters that have them tend to revolve around them. That's the rub of an ability designed to be so good that it can win entire fights or rounds for you, and it's that fact that makes high-level Overwatch, Valorant, and Marvel Rivals an obnoxious bout of particle effects. Fragpunk has heroes and abilities, but there's nothing I'd classify as an ultimate.

There are powerful signature abilities—in his impressions, Evan pointed out Broker's rocket launcher that can one-shot enemies if it hits their feet—but there's no single move as potent as Brimstone's space laser or D.Va's exploding mech. Some Shard Cards rise to that level of usefulness, but even those take the guesswork out of ultimates by telling you exactly what cards are active in the round.

Bonus: The bullets go straight

Sorry for the blasphemy, CS2 and Valorant enjoyers, but I can't get fully behind funky recoil patterns that don't follow the center of the screen. Not only does it make bullets look like they're flying out of bent barrels, but it adds an imprecision to recoil control that I've seen drive friends bananas.

I appreciate that Fragpunk is a straight shooter. As in, the guns work like you'd expect in pretty much every other FPS on the planet. You can even ADS, a feature I loved in the soon-to-be-shut-down Spectre Divide.