FBC: Firebreak

I am a self-proclaimed fan of Remedy - there, I said it. I love their universe, their way of telling stories, and their way of bringing these stories to life with relatively simple but endlessly satisfying gameplay. But most of all, I love that each of their games, from Max Payne to Alan Wake 2 (the latter of which is possibly among my absolute favourite ever), exudes and oozes unique, tangible character. You can't take Remedy out of Control or Alan Wake 2, just as the idea of removing Christopher Nolan's direction from Oppenheimer seems downright impossible. Sam Lake is, the studio is, auteurs.

With that in mind, and with Ketil's relatively reserved but otherwise positive visit to Espoo and first impressions of the game in the back of my mind, I spent an evening last week trying out FBC: Firebreak with my good friend Lasse, and I was somewhat shocked by the studio's very first attempt at creating a multiplayer game from top to bottom, and unfortunately not in a good way. You see, FBC is not broken or even flawed in its structure, nor does it offer a decidedly unfinished or offensive gameplay loop. But it's very clear, both after an hour and after twelve, that the studio, like so many other studios before it, simply hasn't been able to transfer what it does so well to a multiplayer setting without seriously losing its way.

FBC: Firebreak is a cooperative first-person shooter that currently consists of six missions called Jobs. These six missions are first played at Clearance Level 1, but as you progress, you unlock more that extend each of these missions with additional sub-goals - as the game becomes more challenging, you have to delve deeper into each level. Right now, there are three kits, and a fourth that will be sold separately from launch onwards, but these are relatively anaemic and don't seem to specialise in a specific weapon type. Yes, a Splash Kit can extinguish fires and heal the other two players, which is a slightly different active strategic role than a Fix Kit, which can repair machines faster - but each level is designed to be completed without all three kits being present, and thus neither the levels nor individual firefights with Hiss enemies are constructed around a kit, although it helps if you and your teammates are attentive and switch actively between simple weapons and their Kit-specific tools. This isn't the first time that co-op games have dropped kit-specific gameplay, and it's a matter of taste as to how locked your actual role on the battlefield is. For me, it's not the class design that holds the game back.

You'll recognise many of these Hiss enemies from Control, but for some inexplicable reason, they've been reduced to typical co-op shooter enemies with no distinct character other than their characteristic red colour. 70% are typical melee enemies, like zombies that rush the players, combined with classic Heavies and flying enemies that shoot projectiles. Your own abilities do not have the same physical dimensions or devastating effectiveness as Jesse in Control, and likewise, these Hiss no longer appear particularly frightening, nor particularly unique. Furthermore, most missions at low Clearance Levels are marked by a boss, which seems relatively randomly named, and in our case was often "just" a Hiss-possessed security guard with a separate HP bar. It's not that these Hiss are poor enemies, but they feel significantly reduced in their distinct design, and you quickly become relatively familiar with the types that exist, as well as the typical red colour that signals a group spawn. As with everything, there are more distinctive bosses at higher Clearance Levels, which increases the entertainment value and the need for strategic communication, but it's worth mentioning that this is hidden behind perhaps four or five hours of mindless shooting.

A mission at, for example, Clearance Level 2 or Clearance Level 3 involves a little more strategy, as you play for perhaps 18 minutes instead of... well, maybe five minutes on Clearance Level 1 (I simply don't know why the game starts with missions that are so short, because it gives a bad first impression), but at the same time, the levels don't seem particularly conducive to the progression-based gameplay that co-op shooters should deliver. Take Left 4 Dead or even just Back 4 Blood, from which FBC: Firebreak draws some inspiration in more ways than one. Here, you are given a goal, such as reaching a high-rise building at the end of the main street, and along the way there are a number of sub-goals that can be swapped out or adjusted according to difficulty. The point is that this map is more rectangular, even corridor-based. FBC: Firebreak's maps resemble PvP maps. They are almost square, where you and your team move around the edge and complete one or more sub-goals. There are certainly exceptions, such as in a mission where you have to escort a mine cart, but progression and movement do not seem to have that definite forward momentum, as if you are pushing towards something. Yes, Helldivers II maps are usually designed in the same way, but here the motivational factor also arises on a meta-level, where you and all other players on the globe work together to eradicate an intergalactic alien threat. Although FBC: Firebreak is about cleaning up The Oldest House from Control, the game never really updates you on how things are actually going...

This brings us to the issue of onboarding and narrative. No, no one is asking FBC: Firebreak to tell an in-depth, thematically striking story with separate dialogue exchanges and expensive cutscenes. This is about getting your hands deep into the gameplay dough and letting the mechanics, structures, and multiplayer fun speak for themselves. But I was shocked, to say the least, at how little of Remedy's characteristic flair is missing here. There is no opening scene explaining what you have to do and why you have to do it. You are introduced to Hank, who is supposedly your handler, and only through a few randomly selected pieces of voice acting in the main menu do we learn that it is Jesse Faden from Control who has sanctioned this operation. But what it takes to clean up The Oldest House, how Hiss still gets in, and how we as players make progress in this regard is not addressed at all, and it's a shame that as a player you feel so unmotivated narratively - in a Remedy game, a studio that has built its reputation on striking narrative in one way or another.

This may sound a bit messy, but I have deliberately saved the core experience for last, because here there is much better news. FBC: Firebreak is fun to play. It's basically fun to point your weapon at a horde of Hiss and fire, and it's fun to rush around from sub-goal to sub-goal while using your Kit to activate Decontamination Showers, Ammo Stations, and the like. Remedy has clearly put a lot of effort into making sure these levels look great, which they fortunately do, but most of the entertainment value comes from pulling the trigger and moving around with your friends, and they've succeeded here.

The game has a slightly dull meta-progression, but at the same time it is structured in such a way that it is not misunderstood as a live service, because it is not that at all. This is actually a relatively finite co-op experience that can be completed in between 15 and 20 hours, and that's if you insist on completing all Clearance Levels in each of the six Jobs, which you don't really need to do. The point is that the game rewards you continuously with points for both Perks and new gear, and even though that gear is really boring to look at, there's no aggressive monetisation here, or an expectation that you should spend all your free time on FBC - in that respect, it's a bit like Elden Ring: Nightreign, another multiplayer experiment from a single-player-focused studio.

I wish I could recommend FBC: Firebreak more wholeheartedly to you, both because I love Remedy as a studio, but also because I like a good co-op shooter. This game isn't bad per se, and now that it's available on both Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, it's really worth giving it half an hour to see if it clicks. But at the same time, it's yet another story of a single-player studio making a multiplayer project, but failing to convey the energy, ambition, and flair that created the studio's unique reputation in the first place. That's why this is a disappointment, even though there are bound to be some, if not many, who will jump on board anyway.