‘FBC: Firebreak’ Preview Impressions: Remedy’s Co-Op Shooter Works

When news first broke about FBC: Firebreak (out June 17), the new multiplayer shooter from Remedy Entertainment, the idea caused some uneasy feelings among the studio’s fanbase. It wasn’t the sort of disquiet that Remedy likes to cause — between their acclaimed psychological horror games like Control (2019) and Alan Wake 2 (2023), the developers sure enjoy creeping out their players as much as possible. It was more of a nervous enthusiasm. 

Returning to the Oldest House, the setting of the aforementioned Control, is cool. Facing off against the malevolent Hiss, a strange group of human and humanoid monsters whose bodies glow red, is a neat prospect. Replacing previous heroine Jesse Faden, however, with three nameless, faceless agents seemed like a tough hurdle to overcome. And that’s before you consider that Remedy — a studio that’s renowned for producing complex, single-player experiences — would now be venturing into uncharted territory by making a squad-based shooter. 

However, as with any other Remedy project, fans should expect the unexpected. In this case, that is a wild and sometimes difficult ride that invokes the house style and tone of the company’s multi-game continuity (called the Remedy Connected Universe), but also design elements from cooperative classics like Left 4 Dead that brings to the table the best of what team-based shooters have to offer. 

Rolling Stone recently had a chance to go hands on with a preview version of FBC Firebreak ahead of its release next month. Here’s what we found.

Back to the Oldest House

For those who haven’t played any of Remedy’s previous games, the FBC stands for the Federal Bureau of Control, and is a clandestine U.S. government organization that’s responsible for handling paranormal phenomenon. The Oldest House is the FBC’s headquarters, and serves as the central location of 2019’s Control — although the shadowy org also plays a smaller tangential role in the Alan Wake series. Whereas Control and its expansions focus on the FBC’s top brass, Firebreak puts players in the shoes of the lower level staff who have to clean up the chaos from spectral aberrations.

FBC: Firebreak sends up to three friends on missions (mundanely) called Jobs, where they’ll dive into different areas and secretive depths of the Oldest House in order to complete tasks, battle Hiss, and get out before getting overrun. 

Three Job were available in the demo: Hot Fix, where players must enter the furnace in the Maintenance Sector of the building, in order to repair fans that are searing the rooms with immeasurable heat; Paper Chase, where seemingly sentient sticky notes have taken over some offices in the Oldest House, forcing the team to eradicate them as fast as possible; and Ground Control, where the squad must extract irradiated pearls from massive leeches in the Quarry (the lowest depths of the facility), load them into a containment vessel, and launch them into space.

These missions types and their settings are, for all intents and purposes, very Remedy; there’s a creepy vibe looming over every room, and every step you take could result in some unknown horror creeping from the woodwork. The leeches hanging out of the Quarry, the setting of Ground Control, are the stuff of nightmares, writhing above the squad’s heads in overwhelming numbers. The sentient stickies of Paper Chase aren’t initially creepy, but traveling deeper into the stage with once-innocuous yellow Post-its blocking each team member’s vision makes a funny anomaly into a more terrifying endeavor.

The Hiss are no slouches either, offering the greatest hits of the enemies found in 2019’s Control. Standard corrupted guards are mixed with creepy glowing bodies floating in chairs, super-fast strikers that cause big damage quickly, and more. The Hiss are also powered up through heat — the hotter their bodies get, the more damage they’ll deal. This feature is particularly problematic in a Hot Fix run, though every stage has some kind of heat source that can buff the Hiss quickly.

Each of these jobs offers challenges that stand out from the rest, as each of them is unique enough that mixing up a loadout with each run prevents them from feeling monotonous. However, in the early stages, all three of these jobs seem quick — each mission takes place in one room, and it feels like the goal is achieved and the team is back in the elevator just as everyone is getting into a groove. This is intentional; in the early going, the Clearance and Threat Level meters haven’t been adjusted yet, and boy do they make a difference. 

Clearance dictates how far into each Job’s location the team will be required to go in that run, as each area has multiple zones with different lats and objective locations. Threat Level, as the name implies, determines how ruthless the Hiss will be in the upcoming run. 

Some players may decide they want to increase either Clearance Level, Threat Level, or both after one or two runs at the lowest levels. This is not advisable, as the difference between levels one and two for both metrics is a spike in difficulty that will take players by surprise. A Hot Fix run at level two for each setting, for instance, resulted in six grenade-launcher-wielding, heavily-armored Hiss cornering the team at the exit elevator as we waited to exit, pounding us with grenade after grenade until we all died. The objectives were met, the elevator was called, but we were pounded into the dirt right at the finish line. 

This sounds unfair, but the game does offer a slight bit of mercy; success or failure, each member of the team does earn some experience points after every run. More is earned for successful Jobs, of course, but being able to still build a character even in failure is a nice way to encourage the sort of experimentation described above; we learned our lesson, kept the Clearance and Threat levels down for a few more runs, built our characters, figured out our roles, and then tried again when we were ready. 

Grunt work

Speaking of roles, each player assigns themselves a Crisis Kit, which determines their job for the upcoming run. The Jump Kit gives the player an electromagnetic charge impactor, which sends a wave of electricity at a group of Hiss. This is the crowd-control class, where one use of the impactor can electrocute an entire group of Hiss in one fell swoop. 

The Fix Kit, meanwhile, comes equipped with a massive wrench that doubles as a damaging melee weapon and a tool used to fix machinery. This is the job for the player who likes to complete the objective, while the other two play protector. Finally, the Splash Kit is the healer of the group, as the hydro cannon that comes in this kit cools off Hiss for a debuff, puts out damaging fires, and cleanses teammates of debuffs. 

While teams can double or triple up on each kit before a run, that’s not a good idea either; a diverse selection of loadouts affords more varied interactions that will benefit the group as a whole. A Splash Kit player can soak a group of Hiss, for instance, and then a Jump Kit player can activate the impactor for a wider and more powerful area of electric effect. Speaking of the Jump Kit, if the Fix Kit player is predisposed with enemies or another task, the impactor’s electric shock can also repair machines in a pinch. An agile team is a winning one, and figuring out which of the roles is best for each individual player will only benefit the group in the long run. 

As each area is explored, file folders can be found that give points called Lost Assets. These are the points that are spent to earn free cosmetics, upgrades to gear, and more in the Requisitions menu. Some of the upgrades take the form of Altered Items — everyday objects affected by some paranormal force. The Jump Kit’s Altered upgrade, for example, is a garden gnome that, when attached to a charged impactor, inexplicably creates an electric storm that lasts for a short time.

These perks are unlocked through the Requisitions menu, which acts as a battle pass of sorts. However, each Requisition sequence is open-ended; the selection is broken up into pages, and players can purchase any reward on an unlocked page they wish. Once a certain number of offerings is unlocked on a particular page, the next page will become available. Everything in these Requisition menus can be unlocked by playing the game, no additional investment needed. 

However, there is a Requisition track that can be unlocked with real money. With this being a premium game priced at $40, that may rub some people the wrong way. However, nothing in the paid Requisition tracks will affect the core gameplay experience, per Remedy; they are simply extra, optional cosmetics. Compromise!

Fans will be happy to hear that the maestros of psychological terror behind Alan Wake are stepping out of their comfort zone with FBC: Firebreak, and so far the results are shaping up nicely. The jobs are varied and interesting, the hordes of Hiss can be overwhelming without a sound strategy, and the upgrade track offers great incentives — even if one of them is an electrified garden gnome. If the final product delivers this many consistent surprises and thrills over time, Firebreak could end up making a similar splash as its single-player predecessors and suck into an entire new audience into the Remedy Connected Universe.

FBC: Firebreak launches June 17 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC.