Fragpunk surpasses 110k concurrent players on Steam: how it compares to NetEase's other live service games
NetEase has released another live service game as part of its strategy to reach a global audience. Here is how players have met hero shooter FragPunk, and how its launch metrics compare to the company’s previous titles.
FragPunk is the debut project from Hangzhou-based developer Bad Guitar Studio, a subsidiary of NetEase Games. The team is led by creative director and producer Xin Chang, who previously served as senior game designer on MMORPG Justice.
Launched globally on March 7, FragPunk is currently only available on PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and NetEase’s launcher Loading Bay. Console versions are expected to arrive within the next two months.
It is a first-person hero shooter where players can use special cards to change various rules on the battlefield, from healing to increasing the size of enemy heads. It is a rather unusual and bold design choice for a genre that typically focuses on balance and competitiveness.
Looking at FragPunk’s reception on Steam, most players had fun with its core gameplay, praising its gunplay and the card system. However, the game received a “Mixed” rating at launch, with the main complaints being server connection and other technical issues, as well as monetization.
The rating has since increased to “Mostly Positive” (72%) based on more than 12k user reviews. According to Steam Scout, 50% of all reviews are written in English, followed by Russian (12.5%), Simplified Chinese (10%), Portuguese – Brazil (6%), and French (4%).
Many players still criticize the game for having too many conflicting ideas and concepts. Bad Guitar Studio has already addressed some concerns in the official FAQ, including the Battle Pass system and login issues. However, the team has a lot of work to do if they want to retain the audience in the long term.
FragPunk launched with just over 50k concurrent players, eventually peaking at 113,946 CCU on March 9 (via SteamDB). This made it the 17th most played game on the platform yesterday by that metric, right between GTA V Legacy Edition (127.2k CCU) and Tencent’s Delta Force (101.5k CCU).
For comparison, NetEase’s two previous live service products had stronger launches in terms of peak concurrent players:
- Once Human — 231.6k peak CCU, surpassed 10 million unique users in its first month;
- Marvel Rivals — 644.2k peak CCU, surpassed 10 million unique users in its first three days (over 40 million players life-to-date).
Naraka: Bladepoint broke its CCU record last year, peaking at over 385k concurrent players thanks to the release of Season 13. The game still boasts impressive retention on Steam years after launch, with daily peaks of 180k-200k CCU.
NetEase’s live service portfolio already includes hits like Naraka: Bladepoint, Knives Out, and Egg Party. Over the past year, it has been expanded with Once Human, Marvel Rivals, and FragPunk. All three projects are aimed at a global audience, but it remains to be seen whether Bad Guitar’s hero shooter will retain its active player base in the long term.
The Chinese company has several other titles in its production pipeline, including Destiny: Rising (mobile version of Bungie’s shooter), mobile tactical RPG Marvel Mystic Mayhem, and free-to-play action RPG Ananta (dubbed an “anime GTA”).