Games from Remedy Entertainment—like Alan Wake 2, Control, and Max Payne—tend to be single player, third-person, linear adventures with cutscenes, lots of dialogue, and endings. FBC: Firebreak isn’t like those past games at all. And while it might disappoint some Remedy fans, I’m excited to see the studio doing something so different.
Earlier this month I took part in a digital preview event for first-person co-op sci-fi horror shooter FBC: Firebreak, which is set to launch later this year on Xbox, PS5, and PC. The devs at Remedy talked about their design philosophy behind the Left 4 Dead 2-like shooter, answered some questions, and showed off one of the game’s missions.
What kind of game is Firebreak?
FBC: Firebreak is set in the same universe as Control, which itself is part of the larger “Remedy Connected Universe” that also includes Alan Wake. Specifically, FBC is set roughly six years after the events of Control. The destructive interdimensional Hiss still infest most of the Oldest House, the impossibly large and cosmic-horror filled HQ of Control’s Federal Bureau of Control. The lockdown is still in place, and after all these years, supplies are running out and people are getting desperate to take back the HQ and kick the Hiss out for good. So the Bureau’s director—Control protagonist Jesse Faden— has ordered the creation of the Firebreak Initiative. This is a volunteer-based emergency response team tasked with stopping the Hiss.
One of first things that surprised me was Remedy confirming that FBC: Firebreak has no cutscenes. This is part of Remedy’s desire to make FBC pick-up-and-play friendly, one of the game’s core design pillars. The idea is that no matter how many hours you’ve played, you should be able to quickly hop into a game with a buddy and have a good time.
The other two pillars: Make sure FBC is fun on repeat, and content needs to feel like it could only be found in the wild, strange world of Control.
During the event, Remedy showed a pre-recorded mission involving three players. Remedy calls these randomly generated missions “Jobs,” featuring a single main objective with action spread out across a number of sections. Players can control how long and difficult these jobs are before hopping in, which will determine the kinds of rewards and how much XP is awarded at the end
The job we saw was called Paper Chase and involved three players working together to fight through the Hiss, including battling many enemies seen in Control, while destroying thousands of sticky notes scattered around the Oldest House. The post-it notes can even stick to you and obscure your vision. The combat reminded me of what you might find in Left 4 Dead 2 or Back 4 Blood, or even a mission in Destiny 2. Lots of shooting, managing space, and working together to defeat hordes of baddies or complete smaller sub-objectives.
Each player takes into battle a special kit that includes different tools that can change things up in a big way. These include turrets, which are just guns taped to office chairs, or a boom box that attracts enemies to it. Like L4D2, players reach big emergency checkpoints throughout the mission and can take a breather and restock. How many of these doors appear in a mission will depend on how hard you made the job.
Eventually, at the end of the mission, the group took on a giant monster made out of yellow sticky notes. With regards to the key pillars, this certainly seems like something that could only happen in the universe of Control.
FBC Won’t Feel Like A Second Job
If you are wondering why Remedy decided to limit FBC to only three players instead of the more traditional four, the devs explained that they tried out four players early on but it felt like “a little too much to pay attention to” during jobs, and three players “felt better.” You can play solo if you want, or just with one other buddy, but there are no bots. So you’ll need some friends and you’ll need to plan time to play together.
Getting friends together is tricky for a lot of adults and Remedy seem aware of this. Their goal is to make the game extremely easy to hop into, hence no cutscenes or lengthy tutorials, and to not include any FOMO elements or make FBC feel like a “second job.” You can stop playing FBC for months and then come back and you won’t be behind or need to grind to catch up to friends.
Relatedly, when I asked if FBC had an ending that players could eventually reach, I was told no. The game is meant to be played over and over again, with players unlocking new perks and gear to alter how they play while trying out harder jobs. Interestingly, there also won’t be any major “bespoke” story updates. So it seems the world of FBC will be pretty static compared to some other online games.
As a big fan of Control, I asked how FBC: Firebreak will impact the already announced and currently in development Control 2. For the most part, it won’t. In a later answer given to me via an email after the event, Remedy provided more detail on their thinking.
“This was a very conscious decision made early on to protect Control players who shouldn’t be made to go outside their genre comfort zone to follow those stories and to protect non-Control players, who shouldn’t feel like they need to go out of their genre comfort zone to understand Firebreak,” said game director Mike Kayatta. Remedy did confirm that FBC is “canon” to Control and hinted that some characters from the game might show up in Firebreak.
Is FBC: Firebreak a live-service game?
Remedy revealed during the event that FBC will include paid cosmetics and post-launch updates, another fairly big departure from Remedy’s past games. However, they admitted that they were hesitant to use words like “live-service” or “seasons” as these mean very different things to different people.
They instead explained that they want to respect players’ time. No content in FBC will be “time-restricted” or be based around FOMO. Remedy insists they are working hard to make a game “for people with kids,” aka gamers with limited time. They also confirmed that all playable content updates will be free and promised more specific details closer to launch.
When I asked if FBC: Firebreak will have a battle pass or not, the answer was fairly vague. I asked for some clarification and received this response:
We’re not going to have any time-restricted content delivery mechanisms. We’ll be revealing more about our post launch a bit later, but ultimately we can confirm that none of this content will be released on limited time rotation. We want to ensure that whether you play daily or play every other week, you’ll have the opportunity to acquire all the same items.
When I asked how FBC: Firebreak will compete with other online shooters and co-op games, Remedy pushed back and said they weren’t competing with those kinds of games. Instead they want FBC to “slot in” to your life between other games that might demand more of your time. FBC can be a thing you come back to whenever you want and have some free time. Once again, the devs brought up the goal of not making FBC feel like a second job.
Finally, I asked about Switch 2. Remedy made a point during the presentation to talk about how they are striving to make FBC Steam Deck verified and want it to run well on lower spec PCs. So I wondered if that meant a Switch 2 port was in the works.
“We are very busy in developing the game for the launch,” said Kayatta. “So we haven’t given the Switch 2 any thought at this point, but things can always change in the future.” Well, I tried.
For now, FBC: Firebreak will launch later this year on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. It will launch day one on both Game Pass and PS Plus, another way Remedy is trying to give FBC the best shot at finding an audience and avoiding the fate of Sony’s failed FPS Concord.
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