Rant Gaming is the independent studio building Fragmentary Order, a hardcore science fiction multiplayer combat simulator announced on April 12, 2026. It was founded by Nikita Buyanov as a wholly separate company from his earlier work on Escape from Tarkov, and works with publisher Cor3. Its November 2026 announcement describes a worldwide team of 150 and growing, with hiring aimed at a minimum of 500 developers.
At the April 2026 reveal, around 98% of the workforce was described as hired specifically for this project, with only a small number of Battlestate Games consultants involved. Visual direction is led by Aaron Beck, who had been on the project for at least eighteen months at the April 2026 reveal.
The studio operates as an international, primarily remote team, but it does maintain physical offices. Buyanov has named Abu Dhabi and Dubai among its office locations, alongside others, while describing remote work as the studio's main operating mode. The roughly 130-person team reported at the April reveal drew staff from across the games industry and film production; the November announcement gives the newer headcount of 150 and growing.
Studio Profile
Field | Detail |
|---|---|
Developer Name | Rant Gaming |
Founder | |
Team Size | 150 and growing, announced November 2026 |
Roughly New Hires | Around 98% at the April 2026 reveal |
Publisher | Cor3 |
Engine | Unreal Engine 5 (engine and tech) |
Project | |
Active Production | About 18 months as of April 2026 |
Independence From Battlestate Games
Rant Gaming is its own company. It is not a Battlestate Games subsidiary or internal team, and Fragmentary Order is not a sequel or spin-off of Escape from Tarkov. Buyanov has been explicit on this point: the new studio was set up with a separate corporate structure, separate hiring, and a separate creative mandate.
Overlap with Battlestate Games is limited to a handful of consultants. Buyanov continues working on Escape from Tarkov in parallel and intends to keep doing so. Rant Gaming should be treated as a new entity rather than a Tarkov successor.
Production Timeline
As of April 2026, Buyanov placed the project at a couple of years old counting from its conceptualization stage, with roughly a year of that in active production. Reveal coverage has also described the run-up as around eighteen months in total, and the studio has published no start date, so the split should be read as approximate rather than exact. The first phase covered pre-production and concept work: establishing the setting in 2251, defining the player as a remote operator of disposable clones, and locking down the visual language under Aaron Beck's direction.
The studio then moved into roughly twelve months of active development, scaling the team to its current size and bringing the first playable systems online in Unreal Engine 5. The near-term milestone is a first closed alpha wave planned for later in 2026 under a non-disclosure agreement. Paid Candidate and Founder testing tiers opened on November 4, 2026.
Engine and Direction
Where Escape from Tarkov is built in Unity, Rant Gaming has chosen Unreal Engine 5 for Fragmentary Order, a deliberate break with the established Tarkov tech stack. Further detail lives in the Engine and Technology article. The creative direction (hard science fiction with cyberpunk overtones, hardcore pacing, simulation depth over accessibility) is set by Buyanov, with Aaron Beck shaping the visual identity.
Hiring and Disciplines
The studio runs its own careers page, and what it advertises there is a useful first-party check on the team's shape. In early August 2026 it listed four open full-time roles, every one of them posted as a global position rather than tied to a named office: a PR and influencer manager, a technical artist, a rendering engineer, and an associate art director. By the end of that month the board had narrowed to two, the rendering engineer and the associate art director, and the table below is kept as the fuller August snapshot. That is consistent with the primarily remote structure described at reveal, and it is a firmer basis for the claim than third-party staff directories.
Open role | What the listing describes |
|---|---|
PR and influencer manager | Positioned around building external presence for the project, which the listing calls a AAA tactical first-person shooter aimed at a dedicated hardcore audience. Covers media and creator relationships, PR beats around milestones, media events and previews, and sentiment tracking. |
Technical artist | Explicitly an Unreal Engine 5 role, bridging art and technology. Asks for rendering, shader, and asset-pipeline knowledge plus Blueprint proficiency, with profiling and optimisation tools valued. |
Rendering engineer | An engine and rendering programmer role described as supporting complex systems, high-performance rendering, and large-scale gameplay on Unreal Engine. Asks for C++ depth, with multiplayer FPS, networking, Perforce, and continuous-integration experience listed as a plus. |
Associate art director | Drives visual direction alongside the game and art directors, overseeing level art production and in-engine reviews. Asks for level-art experience and Unreal Engine proficiency, and names familiarity with modern firearms or knowledge of Russian as a plus. |
Two details in those listings are worth pulling out. The engine is named as Unreal Engine 5 by the studio itself rather than only in reveal coverage, which lines up with the Engine and Technology article. And the art-direction posting treating familiarity with modern firearms as an asset fits the grounded weapon handling the team has described for a setting two centuries out, where the arsenal is still built around kinetic and powder-based principles rather than energy weapons.
The studio describes itself in the same place as dedicated to developing and publishing games that push the boundaries of what is possible and give players authentic emotions. Note the wording covers publishing as well as development, even though Fragmentary Order is published by Cor3; no second project has been announced, and the relationship between the two companies beyond this game has not been detailed.
November recruitment and publishing update
The November 4, 2026 announcement describes Fragmentary Order as the studio's debut title and puts its worldwide team at 150 and growing. Its plan to reach at least 500 developers is a hiring target, rather than a count of current employees. Cor3 is described separately as a direct-to-consumer PC publisher and platform, with this game its first major exclusive title.
The careers board checked on November 5 lists three global, full-time roles. The table records that dated recruitment snapshot; the August listings above remain as historical evidence of the production pipeline.
Role | Published responsibilities and requirements |
|---|---|
VFX Artist | Real-time fire, smoke, explosions, splashes and other gameplay effects; Unreal Engine 5, Niagara and physically based rendering workflows. |
Rendering Engineer | Rendering optimization, Unreal Engine extensions and production tools; C++ and system architecture, with multiplayer FPS, networking, Perforce and continuous-integration experience valued. |
Associate Art Director | Work with game and art directors on visual direction, level art, game-ready assets and in-engine reviews; Unreal Engine and level-art experience. |
Unconfirmed Details
Several aspects of the studio remain undisclosed and should not be assumed:
A single primary headquarters city. The studio is primarily remote but keeps offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and elsewhere; which one (if any) serves as the main headquarters is not specified.
The specific functions of the named offices and the locations or functions of any additional regional offices.
Internal team structure, department sizes, and leadership below the top creative tier.
Named team members beyond Nikita Buyanov and Aaron Beck.
Funding structure and ownership stakes between Rant Gaming, Cor3, and any external investors.