Nikita Buyanov premiered the first gameplay for Fragmentary Order on Wednesday, Nov. 4. The PC shooter casts players as remote-controlled clones in 2251, and paid test access starts at $44.99.
Nikita Buyanov made his name with Escape From Tarkov, a shooter famous for making players suffer. His next game hands you a body you can afford to lose.
On Wednesday, Nov. 4, Buyanov premiered the first gameplay trailer for Fragmentary Order, a hardcore sci-fi shooter from his new studio, Rant Gaming. It packs 14 minutes of in-engine footage, according to a press release from the studio and its publisher, COR3.
“We’re not building a match you play. We’re building a world you live in, for years,” Buyanov said in the release.
Rant Gaming has 150 people and plans to grow to at least 500 developers, the release says.
The video is on the game’s official YouTube channel, and yes, there’s plenty of gunfire. You can watch the official gameplay reveal there.
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What does the Fragmentary Order gameplay show?
Mostly one player’s loot run. Forbes contributor Mike Stubbs wrote that the footage starts with a player looting out in the field. Then it’s a push for the exit, with fights against several groups of enemies at different ranges.
The video also shows inventory management and a weapon modding screen, Stubbs wrote. He called the running chatter between the player and a squad mate “insufferable.”
Overall, he wasn’t sold. Stubbs wrote that “the initial reveal footage resembles Tarkov in space,” and admitted it “failed to get me excited.”
What is Fragmentary Order about?
War has been outsourced. In 2251, the fighting across the Solar System is done by RepEnts, remotely operated clones, according to the press release.
Dying is part of the budget. In this system, the release says, “losing a RepEnt is a cost, not an end: death is a business expense, risk is an investment, and combat is labor.”
Mars is the first big battleground. Buyanov told GamesBeat this spring that Mars “is more like the Wild West in space.” Squads top out at four players, and the maps have vehicles and drones, the release says.
Those maps are big. Buyanov told GamesBeat that locations are “four or five times bigger than the typical Tarkov location.”
Is Fragmentary Order an extraction shooter?
Sort of. “We call it a combat simulator. It will have extraction mechanics, but it will be pretty different,” Buyanov told GamesBeat.
He also took a swipe at a rival. Asked about Arc Raiders, he called it “an extraction shooter for casual people,” PC Gamer reported. “We want to have the most painful, most challenging, and most rewarding experience,” he said.
Is Fragmentary Order coming to Steam?
Nothing announced so far points that way. COR3 calls itself “a direct-to-consumer PC publisher and platform,” and the release says Fragmentary Order is “the first major title published exclusively on COR3.”
There’s no release date and no word on consoles. The first closed alpha wave, under an NDA, “is planned for later this year,” the release says.
Getting in early costs money. Prime Batch, the paid testing program, has a $44.99 Candidate tier and a $79.99 Founder tier that adds earlier experimental builds and direct developer access. The release says Prime Batch runs through development and is “unobtainable afterwards.”
What does this mean for Escape From Tarkov?
Buyanov says he isn’t going anywhere. Early on, he said the game wasn’t related to Battlestate or Tarkov. In April, he confirmed a company he created is making it and posted, “Escape from Tarkov is my life,” PC Gamer reported.
Battlestate Games, with about 400 staff, is still working on Tarkov, according to GamesBeat. Buyanov told the outlet the Fragmentary Order crew is “about 98% a brand new team,” with a few Tarkov consultants. He also admitted, “It’s very hard for me to live and work with these two current projects simultaneously.”
Tarkov finally hit 1.0 and launched on Steam on Nov. 15, 2025, after a beta that started in 2016. Battlestate also runs a spinoff, Escape From Tarkov: Arena. In April, the studio pushed back Arena’s next update while it moved the game to the Unity 6 engine, iXBT.games reported.
Fragmentary Order is built on Unreal Engine instead, according to GamesBeat.
Tarkov’s 1.0 release turns one on Sunday, Nov. 15. Its creator is already betting that players want something even harder, as long as the body on the line is a rental.
Article compiled and written by Thom Pratt (editor-in-chief), Derek Gibbs (beat editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
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Games Press (Nov. 4): The Rant Gaming and COR3 press release.
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Forbes, Mike Stubbs (Nov. 4): What the footage shows.
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GamesBeat (April): The Buyanov interview.
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PC Gamer, Rory Norris (April 23) and Elie Gould (April 14): The Arc Raiders and Tarkov quotes.
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iXBT.games, Boris Piletskiy (April 1): The Arena delay.
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