FBC: Firebreak Review – Cleaning House
Known for their critically-acclaimed single-player titles like Max Payne, Alan Wake, and Control, Remedy Entertainment is venturing into new territory. Their latest release, FBC: Firebreak, is a brand-new IP set in the Control universe, and it breaks away from the studio’s tradition with its strong emphasis on multiplayer.
Does Remedy manage to capture the magic they’ve delivered in their beloved single-player experiences within this new multiplayer landscape? Let’s find out.
Into the Oldest House
So, what is FBC: Firebreak? Well, the short of it is that it’s a three-player cooperative game in which players face off against hordes of enemies from the Control universe, as they try to complete objectives to clean the Oldest House, where the game takes place. There’s not much to it beyond that in terms of narrative scope, and for those who have played Alan Wake or Control and are wondering if this expands on any of those games, the answer is no. It’s not entirely a bad thing, as the game is its own thing outside of the setting. For those who enjoy playing single-player and are worried that they would be missing out on the story, you can put those worries aside.
Still, it does feel like a rather big departure for Remedy in the narrative side of things, and if I am honest, connected or not, the lack of a meaningful narrative to tie things in FBC: Firebreak does seem to harm it. As it stands, the game is set up to be mission-based, with five total missions, or as the studio calls them, jobs, available at launch. Each job has three levels of missions you have to go through to unlock the “full” job, which, in reality, feels like pointless padding, as the first level of a job lasts for only a few short minutes. Mine, as well as my coop partners’, immediate response was, “Really, that’s it?” as the “Mission Complete” screen popped up, making us think we had done something wrong. It feels a bit like a head-scratcher, so why bother to include that variation of said job?
As you progress through each job level, it becomes a rinse-and-repeat process until the final boss or objective, which are typically followed by more repetitive tasks, such as fixing an item or transporting barrels.
With no story to tie these levels in any meaningful way, there’s not much of a sense of “progression” that you would get from something similar to Left 4 Dead, and other cooperative games. By the time I had unlocked the final job, it felt like I was going through the motions while waiting for the objective to complete, with no real drive to see it through.
That’s not to say there isn’t fun to be had with FBC: Firebreak, because the core loop of going around a level and getting overwhelmed by a bunch of enemies as you try and shoot your way out, that’s the big grab with these horde-like PvE style games. Sadly, it’s hard to enjoy that when the objectives are so bland. The final job has you running around the map to find heaters and placing them on anomalies, and it feels like an eternity to destroy a single one despite there being a bunch of heaters around them.
All the jobs end the same way, though, with you rushing back to the elevator to extract, while a high-level enemy spawns. I feel like these were supposed to be the most intense parts of the jobs, which they usually are, but I can’t take it all too seriously when I see a boss bar show up, and it’s just some dude named Jake, or some other common name. I assume they are the names of a fellow Firebreak who perished trying to clean the house, but there’s nothing to confirm that, no narrative hint to say who this thing was.
I know this game can be really fun because, out of the five jobs, one stands out the most, where you go around and shoot at things as the environment violently transforms into a pink goo. There’s no need to fix fans, no waiting around for barrels to be filled, transporting cargo, or hunting down radioactive balls. Just point and shoot, the most basic, simplistic objective, and yet it brings up the case that sometimes less is more. That specific job felt closer to the classic Left 4 Dead experience, and I think FBC: Firebreak could have used more of that, with a narrative to help tie things together and give players a real reason to undertake these jobs.
Despite Being Set in Control, FBC: Firebreak Is Afraid of Getting Creative With Weapons
The core loop of FBC: Firebreak is to play through these jobs and collect Research Samples and Lost Assets so you can unlock new gear in the battle pass-like system, as well as perks. There are classes, which are dubbed Crisis Kit, that have their own abilities that are meant to work in synergy with the others. For example, there’s a kit that lets you spray water, with another kit that can electrocute anything that is wet. As you unlock more gear, you get access to better kits’ abilities and some perks that add passive buffs.
Progression, in my opinion, is a bit too slow for my taste, as some of the game’s best items felt like they came in far too late into the game, where I can see a lot of players probably dropping it by then. I like that the kits get a variety of cool abilities, but it is a shame that the guns in the game are just so basic. For a multiplayer game set in the Control universe, you would think that there would be some really cool and creative guns designed for this game, but the reality is that you’re stuck with the everyday archetypes of guns you see in every other shooter. Control built this idea of the Object of Powers, giving the player a Service Weapon that could transform into different weapons.
You don’t get that here. Like I said, they’re pretty basic guns, like a pistol, shotgun, machine gun, assault rifle, just guns you would expect to see from any shooter. That’s fine to have those types of firearms, but it feels like a missed opportunity to experiment with some more unique ones. There is a gun you can pick up during jobs; it looks like a shredder and shoots out a bazillion bullets at a time. That’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen, and it sucks that Remedy didn’t give every other weapon that same treatment. For the setting that FBC: Firebreak has, I expected to see more when it came to the weaponry.
Hiss, Hiss, Miss?
I wanted to like FBC: Firebreak. Mainly because we desperately need more horde-like cooperative games in the vein of Left 4 Dead. I think it has a lot of promise, and seeing what Remedy is already doing with the feedback provided by the game’s community, it seems like they are working on making the game better than it currently is. There’s some fun to be had for sure, and I like the idea that Remedy is presenting itself here, but ultimately, there’s not much of a reason to keep you playing after finishing the initial stages. Sure, there are higher-level difficulties to play through and modifiers, but those don’t fix the core loop of some of these jobs, primarily about performing repetitive and tedious tasks that you’re likely to be over with the second you realize how often you have to do them.
It’s hard to recommend the game in its current state, but it is a part of Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Extra, so if you’re subscribed to either, then yeah, I would say give it a shot.
Score: 6.5/10
Pros
- Strong Co-op Foundation.
- Synergistic Class Abilities that encourage teamwork.
- Though the progression system can be a bit slow, there are tons to unlock and play around with. \
- The visuals are pretty.
Cons
- Bland mission structure.
- Lack of any narrative to at least tie things together better.
- Uninspired Bosses/Extraction Endings
- Mundane Objectives
- Unimaginative Weaponry
- A budget $40, though even that’s a tough asking price for how little there ends up being in content.
FBC: Firebreak review code was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.
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