The streamer shroud explains on Twitch that “tactical shooters” are done and a new game is supposed to be the proof of that.
Who is it about? Michael “shroud” Grzesiek is a well-known Twitch streamer and former CS: GO and Valorant pro.
- On Twitch, shroud has 11.1 million followers and averaged 10,800 viewers simultaneously over the past 3 months (via Sullygnome).
- In 2024, shroud introduced the tactical shooter Spectre Divide, in which he was involved in development. However, the game was shut down after just 7 months, the developers announced the shutdown.
In a stream, shroud recently talked about the state of tactical shooters and explained why, in his view, new games in the genre fail (via YouTube).
No room for more games in the genre
What does shroud say? Initially, the streamer showed the player numbers of FragPunk (PC, Xbox, PS5), a relatively new tactical shooter that was released in March 2025. Recently, the game had an average of under 10,000 players on Steam, while about 114,000 were playing at release (via SteamDB).
Shroud sees in the player numbers of FragPunk, which have significantly decreased in less than 2 months, that the genre “tactical shooters” is done. FragPunk is, according to shroud, a very high-quality game, perhaps the highest quality tactical shooter since Valorant, and yet it cannot maintain the player numbers. He believes that if FragPunk cannot be successful, perhaps no new tactical shooter can.
The streamer does not see the problem of FragPunk’s declining player numbers with FragPunk itself, but is convinced that the issue is that players of the genre prefer to play three older games: Counter-Strike, Valorant, and Rainbow Six: Siege. “There is no more room for more [tactical shooters],” he concludes.
What is FragPunk? FragPunk is a tactical shooter in which two teams of five different heroes compete against each other. The playable heroes have various abilities, such as a sonar scan, a smoke wall, or healing mushrooms.
It is played in a classic 5v5 mode, as is known from games like Counter-Strike. This means that the attacking team must plant a type of “bomb” at one of 2 spots (A or B) and the defenders must prevent this. There is no respawn.
The great feature of FragPunk is a system that allows you to choose a set of game cards at the beginning of each round, which have different effects. These cards can change the weather or give your opponents larger heads. Additionally, in the event of a tie, the teams face off in 1v1 duels.
Starting April 29, 2025, you can play FragPunk for free on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. PC players can play the shooter via Steam and the Epic Games Store. If you are still unsure whether the game might appeal to you, we present you with 4 reasons that make FragPunk special on MeinMMO: 4 reasons why you should try the new PvP shooter FragPunk
