Nikita Has Teased His Next Project

(Intro)

February 1st was the beginning of a new chapter for Nikita, the lead head on Escape From Tarkov. He revealed a brand-new game in the works with a whole new host of developers. And it wasn’t until the 13th of April where we got our first full teaser trailer. Fragmentary Order, the title of the new project, looks to be taking a surprising amount of inspiration and ideas directly from Tarkov, but elevating them with a new setting, a new series of unfortunate events and a very similar gameplay hook. Armed with limited knowledge currently, I’ll be brutally honest and didn’t think much of this teaser until I rewatched it a couple of times and then checked out the website, and saw the similarities between this and Tarkov, which let me be clear and say isn’t entirely a bad thing. For a long time, we all kind of just assumed the next project from Nikita was going to the Russia 2028, the more narrative and strictly single-player focused version of Tarkov. But considering that Battle State isn’t actually making this game, that is still technically on the table. Regardless, this is a new game from Nikita with a new team behind it. What does this game consist of from what we’ve been told? How many similarities will it have to Tarkov? How much will it be iterating on that formula? And when can we potentially expect it? Let’s talk about Fragmentary Order and whether or not this game is going to have the same impact EFT did many years ago.

(What is Fragmentary Order?)

The first question we need to answer: what is Fragmentary Order? According to not only the official YouTube page for this game, but the official website, Fragmentary Order is a next generation, first person, multiplayer, tactical combat simulator set in a world where warfare has become a controlled, remote driven economy. In this game, we will be playing as a “RepEnt”: a remotely operated clone asset certified for high-risk special combat operations. We will be working under the company CORIE, with the goal of establishing connections to deal with higher and more major corporations. Infiltrating different locations across the solar system all dealing with their own conflict and struggles for resources and power. So, from these descriptions, it really seems similar to how Tarkov plays out regarding being able to choose which map we want to load into, with an arsenal of different weapons and equipment. Except this time, it’s across the stars and the cosmos instead of just a fictional Russian region. In a post after the teaser trailer, Nikita expressed how he’s always wanted to do a sci-fi themed game and how this is going to fulfill that desire. He writes:

“I’ve always dreamed to make a proper hard sci-fi. It’s been around in my head for years; to bring life to a new universe with a predicting the future approach. And of course, add something new to the genre as I did with Tarkov. Now my life has become twice as difficult. I decided to rush in with the thought: ‘what if more time passes and I no longer can or want to do anything new?’ Frago is being developed by a separate company that I created, full of great people around the globe. Escape From Tarkov is my life and I’m continue working on it too with my BSG family no matter what.”

Some of this is news to me. The fact he’s wanted to go sci-fi for the foundation for a game is interesting but honestly shouldn’t come as a surprise. Again, the working theory for a long time was once he was done with Tarkov and that game had a crew that was managing it, the next immediate project for him was Russia 2028; the reason why Tarkov even exists in the first place. A much more narrative, cinematic experience set in the same universe, but single player and a much more grounded experience that focused on the story and lore of the world. But I guess now, having a separate studio allows him to work on multiple projects at once. The idea of Russia 2028 is most likely still on the table but probably is being pushed back to focus on this. Which is the next immediate question, how far in development is this game? I can’t imagine very far, but my hope is that they’ve learned from some of the mistakes surrounding Tarkov and can either make the game in a clearer and more efficient timeline or just going radio silent until the game is in a playable state. Because right now on their website, you can sign up and participate in what looks like some kind of interactive, almost ARG experience. You navigate all different kinds of files, both video and text, and work on tasks to progress and figure out more of the story. And by doing this, you can level up and earn rewards? It’s kind of confusing at first glance, but it seems like this might be a way to gain early and first access to playable builds of Fragmentary Order. But other than the website, there was a seven-minute-long trailer with narration giving some context to the world and what is happening. So, let’s go over some of the information I was able to glean from watching it multiple times and make some revelations as well as some comparisons to Tarkov.

(Breaking down the announcement trailer)

The trailer has very similar feelings and moods tied to the story trailer that came alongside the 1.0 release of Tarkov. A mega corporation deeply in control of what’s going on around them; sowing seeds for future outcomes. Regardless of if they are beneficial or detrimental to the larger group of people as a whole. Nikita definitely took a lot of inspiration from Tarkov and the events that play out in that game with Fragmentary Order. Instead of going over the trailer frame by frame, I figured I would just give some of the highlights I noticed after replaying it a couple of times. Because surprisingly, there’s a decent amount of depth here already, with the little context we have so far. Some of the observations I made were that, like Tarkov, we have another major event revolving around a flash of light. In Tarkov it’s the EMP that gives way to the region being off the grid, but in frag order it seems to be much more leaning into sci-fi; the world losing both oxygen and gravity in an instant. Whether this is what actually happened, a reference to Tarkov itself or a metaphor for something much deeper, it’s too early to tell. Once again and we touched on this, a single corporate entity seems to be in the driver's seat for a lot of the events occurring in this trailer. Considering our character is working for them, I guess the main question is whether they are doing it out of necessity or because it’s just their job. This company, CORE, seems to have three major branches on showcase: the main one being the advanced firearms manufacturer, a military branch, and a specialized tech branch. Immediately that just tells me that these guys don’t mess around and are kind of top dogs in this space. We don’t know if this company is good, but considering their similarities to Terra Group from Tarkov, I’m not banking on it. This company made the observation that the only way to advance both technologically and humanity was looking upwards to the stars and the cosmos. So, the race to be the first out into space and colonizing different planets began. Although to be fair, it didn’t seem like much of a race. The narrator hints at the idea of groups of people not okay with both the company trying to advance so quickly but also just their existence in general. And when met with hostility, it seems like core might’ve taken extreme measures to force capitulation from those who might otherwise impede their progress. There also seems to be a lot of fighting across what looked like Mars; colonized by groups who were at it with each other, and core came in and kind of cleaned up the mess. Again, these are just some observations I noticed during the seven-minute trailer. There’s a lot to unpack, and I’m sure I missed some stuff. But I will admit, I think this reveal trailer is better than the original Tarkov trailer with the two factions fighting in the factory. While that gives you a better idea as to what the gameplay was going to look like, this is filled with much more story and lore, planting seeds for those who are curious and want to engage with their website and uncover more information about what exactly is going on. The biggest shocker honestly in all of this is that the game is multiplayer, which it shouldn’t be. But I always thought the next project from Nikita would’ve been a single player so they can really make something that is solid and focused from the very start. Which I guess is the final question I have for Fragmentary Order: will it be good?

(Will it be good?)

This is very much a loaded question. Firstly, it’s way too early for any definitive or absolute conclusions from one trailer. It's interesting, of course. It has me intrigued. It's from Nikita so I am already invested enough to want to see more. But with all the experience he and the team have from making Tarkov and Arena, I wonder how much of the lessons learned will carry over to this game. How many versions will be available for purchase. How will the gameplay loop feel. Considering that this game according to the man himself is not an extraction shooter, I really do wonder what it’s going to try and do differently from other games in whatever genre it ends up being. This is purely speculation, but how cool would it be if this was a game similar to something like Planetside 2? Where you have these massive maps and conquest games that are hours long, and it’s about the push and pull of massive servers working to take as much territory as possible? I don’t think that will be the case, considering all the verbiage that is used on their website; it seems much more tactical, much more about the road to success and climbing the ladder to become as wealthy and powerful in this world as possible. This is going to sound crazy, but the premise and how there are different factions of people vying for power almost gives me Armored Core 6 vibes; how you are essentially work for higher and just do whatever is given to you so your handler can profit from it. But then eventually, offers from other powers kind of make you realize you hold all the cards, and you can just take what you want. But at the end of the day, it all depends on what Nikita wants this game to be. And luckily, a recent interview came out from games beat where they were able to ask some questions about the trailer, the reception and why Nikita went in the sci-fi direction for his next project. The interview is pretty long, so we won’t go over a ton of it, but there were some highlights that I wanted to point out. I’ll also link the interview in the description if you’d like to read it yourself, but the main gist, is that this game has been in development for a couple of years now, but a new studio called Rant Gaming Studios, and the publisher is a new group under Nikita simply called core. And while it isn’t an extraction shooter, it will have many elements from that genre. He feels tired after working on Tarkov for over a decade, which I understand and wants to challenge himself by not only working on a new project with new themes, locations and the like, but also juggling now two projects at once. Nikita felt that he needed to hide his name away from this project so it can speak for itself, which I think was a smart call. Because the game and its ideas have spoken and his name can be attached to something that isn’t just EFT. People will poo poo this game because of all the shortcomings that Tarkov has and while I get that and it doesn’t absolve Nikita of his sins with Tarkov, what this means is a clean slate, with a decades of actual game making experience that can now be put to the test with something new. I hope it works out for him and the team, and I am patiently waiting for more news, more videos, and more insight into this new project.

(Outro)

Nikita, after over ten years working on a single game, finally feels like it’s time for something new. And while it takes up a lot of pages from Tarkov from just a single teaser, Fragmentary Order seems like it will have its own host of things to be excited about. From the universe, the set pieces, the lore and anything else in between, a new game means fresh opportunities to flex creative muscles and just try something different, even if it borrows from the previous title. At the very least, ideas that maybe didn’t work or were cool on paper but not in implementation can be iterated to a point where maybe now they will work. Fragmentary Order is teeming with opportunity. And again, I’ve already seen the memes of head, oxygen tube, this game falling into the same pitfalls that Tarkov did. It’s entirely possible. But maybe just maybe for a second, we can just be excited about the prospect of something new instead of immediately writing it off because Nikita is behind it. If it sucks, well then, we’ll talk about it sucking. But if it’s good or unique in its own ways from Tarkov, we’ll go over that too. But all in due time. Let’s just see what becomes of it first, and pass judgement when we get to play it. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on Fragmentary Order, if you are interested in it, if you plan on messing around with the website to dig for lore and be sure to subscribe for more videos about new and potentially exciting titles from developers that we’ve been following over the last ten years. I hope to see you in future ones.