Tarkov creator's Fragmentary Order gets a 14-minute gameplay reveal, with paid Prime Batch testing from $44.99

The man behind Escape from Tarkov is finally showing his next game. Nikita Buyanov premiered the first gameplay reveal for Fragmentary Order today, with 14 minutes of in-engine footage. He shared it on X as a 4K gameplay reveal, and the full video is on YouTube.

What it is

Fragmentary Order is a hardcore, hard sci-fi tactical shooter set across the Solar System in 2251. War has been outsourced, and you fight through RepEnts, remotely operated clones. Losing one is a cost, not the end. The press release puts it bluntly: “death is a business expense, risk is an investment, and combat is labor.” Press text quoted by Insider Gaming also promises no wall-hack magic, since electromagnetic sensors expose your own signature too.

The studio lists large-scale maps with varying environmental conditions, vehicles, drones, smart systems and squads of up to four. Insider Gaming also reports it’s being built in Unreal Engine, which the release doesn’t mention.

Prime Batch, the paid closed test

Right after the reveal, Buyanov opened Prime Batch, a paid closed testing program that runs through the pre-public development phase and can’t be bought afterward. There are two tiers:

• Candidate ($44.99): alpha sessions, major technical playtests, a “Candidate” ranking designation and an in-game package that hasn’t been announced yet.
• Founder ($79.99): everything in Candidate, plus a Founder package (also to be announced), earlier experimental builds, early roadmap visibility and a closed community with direct developer access.

Your rank on cor3.gg, the game’s ARG-style companion experience, gets you a discount, and it stacks with vouchers from the cor3.gg event. The first closed alpha wave, under NDA, is planned for later this year. Another FragOTV podcast with alpha details is on the way.

Who’s making it

GamesBeat notes it’s from Rant Gaming, Buyanov’s independent studio, which has 150 people and plans to grow to at least 500. It’s the first major title published exclusively on COR3, a direct-to-consumer PC publisher and platform. “Tarkov is still worth playing after ten years, and I want Fragmentary Order to be just as playable and engaging a decade from now,” Buyanov said.

PPR take: The footage looks sharp, and the RepEnt idea is a clever way to make dying in a hardcore shooter matter without wiping you out for good. I like that Buyanov is leaning into hard sci-fi with no wall-hack magic, too. But I’d hold onto the wallet for a minute. $44.99 just to get into closed testing, with the in-game packages still “to be announced,” is asking for a lot of trust before anyone outside the studio has played it. Us Star Citizen folks know the paid-alpha road better than anyone…it can pay off, but it’s a LONG road. Tarkov earned its fans over a decade, and Frago is going to have to do the same. If that first alpha wave really lands this year, that’s when I’ll know if this is the real deal.