FBC: Firebreak Reviews

FBC: Firebreak launched roughly two months ago to little fanfare and mixed reviews. At the time, I had written a review of my own, singling out the game's slow progression as its main failure, but Remedy released a new update just hours before I posted my review, rendering my verdict obsolete. The patch did improve things enough to smooth over my biggest issues with the game, but didn't do enough to turn a mediocre experience into anything more.

FBC: Firebreak is an unusual game. Returning to The Oldest House from Control, but this time as a scrappy bunch of volunteer janitors, you have to confront the Hiss-controlled hordes and a slew of existential threats that are as mundane as they are potentially deadly.

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FBC: Firebreak is a compelling co-op shooter that, despite its good looks, doesn’t have the depth to keep things interesting long-term.

The biggest issue that FBC: Firebreak has is that it’s far too ordinary for its own universe.

FBC: Firebreak has plenty of potential, but feels like early access in its current state. Remedy's patented surrealism, the core gameplay, and class synergy are high notes in particular; however the game is let down by a lack of content and technical issues. Hopefully, over time, FBC Firebreak can live up to its potential.

FBC: Firebreak is a tedious co-op shooter, lacking in moment-to-moment fun gameplay and rewarding progression. The mission objectives, while unique, are deeply boring to actually engage with, and the shooting itself doesn’t meet the standard set by other games in the genre. The story connections to Control are easter eggs at best, making FBC: Firebreak an experience not worthy of your time.

Firebreak could be 2025's most underrated shooter — if it can hold players' attention long enough. But Remedy isn't punching above its weight anymore. It's pacing itself, for better or worse.

As someone who is not entrenched in one of the many live-service shooter games on the market right now, FBC: Firebreak felt like the multiplayer experience built for me. It has all the weird quirkiness that Remedy has been known for, with clever character classes that synergize well and the kinds of missions you would never see anywhere else. But somehow, when I jump into the game, it doesn’t feel right. The Oldest House is swarming with enemies, but somehow still feels somewhat empty. The missions feel repetitive and even tedious at times. Hopefully, Remedy can learn from this and turn this game into something great, or use the feedback for the next attempt at multiplayer.

Even if you're a fan of Control - or Remedy Games in general - it's best to avoid FBC: Firebreak. Even at the low price of free on Game Pass and PS Plus, we simply can't recommend it.

Firebreak is emblematic of the old saying – “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The early missions are not reflective of the true depth and replayability the game offers. If you invest a bit of time and upgrade your kit, there is a lot of fun to be had here.

A bold approach to the concept of work marks this game out as a singular enterprise.

Mowing down poorly paced waves of the same handful of enemies in repetitive, cramped environments is a chore in this ill-conceived Control spin-off, even when you add two friends to the equation. With no story to speak of and sluggish progression, FBC: Firebreak is a disappointing mess.

Control was a fantastic single-player title, and FBC: Firebreak is a spin-off of it.  It is also the first multiplayer-focused release from Remedy. Set six years after Control, you are an agent of the FBC, tasked with various jobs around your company’s ever-shifting base. Firebreak is a three-player cooperative “horde-mode with tasks” game that is light on content, fun, and loses everything that made the original so good.

Remedy's co-op FPS is a fun Control spin-off when everything goes right, though such circumstances can prove elusive early on.

Remedy's paranormal playground becomes a paperwork simulator in FBC: Firebreak's chaotic but colorless co-op experiment.

Still, they could serve as an opportunity to de-boring the lower Clearance Levels, by replacing the simple repair tasks with more unique and substantial objectives. That would both sweeten the deal of replaying jobs for XP, and steer Firebreak back towards to the ideal of shorter deployments that are still worth playing. Would such an approach risk overstuffing a full, three-stage job? Maybe, but then this is the studio that made We Sing and the Ashtray Maze, and I’d very much like to see F...

I was admittedly skeptical when FBC: Firebreak was announced. It’s a pretty strong departure for Remedy Entertainment, a studio whose roots are firmly planted in cinematic, single-player games. With Firebreak aiming to put a co-op spin on the supernatural world of Control, I just wasn’t sure how they’d pull off a worthwhile experience. Well, they did. And they did it with two key components: a strong emphasis on cooperative play, and finding the fun in the mundane.

Despite a general feeling that Remedy can do no wrong, I walked out of a hands-on FBC Firebreak preview last month year just a tad concerned. Paired with two other journos from (quite literally) halfway around the world, my experience was incredibly laggy; I admittedly didn’t help matters by playing via Steam with the game installed on an HDD rather than an SSD.

FBC: Firebreak is the newest title from Remedy Entertainment, mostly known for Alan Wake and Control. Unlike those titles, this is a departure from the studio’s usual single-player third-person action stories. FBC: Firebreak is instead a first-person co-op shooter in the vein of Helldivers 2 or Deep Rock Galactic.

In our latest review, we take a look at FBC: Firebreak for the PS5. Venturing back into the Oldest House, we play as a member of Firebreak who are tasked with taking back control. Play through five different Jobs, each providing unique challenges for players to discover.

As Remedy's first co-op shooter, FBC: Firebreak is a successful experiment, and while it doesn't quite match up to the best in the genre, the Oldest House is still a good stage for some creepy, frenetic action.

An incredibly fun and engaging Horde Shooter, it isn’t perfect, but it’s an absolute blast to play!

Remedy already plans to deliver a good bit of fresh content to FBC: Firebreak in 2025, including two all-new game modes, which will hopefully be less tedious than what's currently on offer. But either way, Firebreak may be a bit of a wait-and-see situation: it doesn't feel like it has enough meat on its bones to justify its $40 asking price, not to mention its paid battle passes. Firebreak has the bones of a truly exceptional co-op game, and hopefully, Remedy will get the chance to deliver it.

Firebreak is an old-school co-op shooter that avoids all of modern gaming's compulsion systems, for better and for worse.

I’m sure fans of Control will get even more enjoyment out of this game, as it’s set within that universe and features its characters and enemies. Unfortunately, that one’s been in my backlog for years, so I have little connection to the franchise. But the good news is, I still found some joy in it without having any idea what was going on, so there’s no need to play the first game.

FBC: Firebreak is a game that lacks a cohesive identity. While the gameplay formula is solid, the repetitive missions, objectives, and grinding for new unlocks are more monotonous than fun. Additionally, the lack of a proper narrative compared to other games from Remedy Entertainment makes it a hard game to justify purchasing whether you're a fan of its previous titles or simply a fan of the multiplayer co-op genre.

FBC: Firebreak is an apparent attempt by the studio to try something new, and misses the mark. In a world where games like Left 4 Dead exist, it's hard to justify a reason to play this game. The gameplay loop is less than ideal, and the same can be said about the gunplay, which is a core feature. Many major story beats can easily be missed, and it's a shame.

FBC: Firebreak is an excellent online co-op experience made by the creative minds behind Control. It is an approachable game with no FOMO systems that also includes a highly engaging gameplay loop with unique objectives and mechanics.

As the studio's debut multiplayer game, it comes with the expected warts and wonders of a first effort. But it's how Remedy was able to blend the game's unique experiences with the unpredictability of online co-op play that makes FBC: Firebreak the weird one-of-a-kind game it is.

FBC: Firebreak's madcap mission conceits are delightfully silly, but balancing issues and limited replay value hinder the fun.

Each of the five stages comes in three clearance levels, starting with a tutorial version and progressing to two additional iterations. While all three clearance levels of a job start in the same area and present the same basic objective, each one unlocks a new door to continue deeper. Firebreak's potential for short sessions is a selling point, but only the final clearance levels offer any noteworthy challenge, and only when cranked to Extreme difficulty. The other clearance levels have no selling point beyond brevity, and the ease of sleepwalking through them renders two-thirds of the purported content almost irrelevant.

FBC: Firebreak is a funny kind of game, especially from Remedy Entertainment. In an odd first, Remedy — the team behind single player games like Alan Wake 2 — has pivoted to multiplayer with its latest project.

FCB: Firebreak takes the strangeness of the Control universe and applies it to a genuinely fun and challenging co-op shooter.

FBC Firebreak delivers an experience that is, at best, competent and, at worst, tedious. Given the glut of options in the multiplayer FPS market and the $40 price tag this game carries, it is hard to suggest it to anyone.

Remedy Entertainment takes a safe approach to the multiplayer scene with their red-hot FBC: Firebreak. The game delivers exactly what it says on the tin—an easy pick-up-and-play cooperative FPS title with a simplistic footing, but without the traditional live-service elements plaguing its future. The gunplay, albeit a bit too arcadey for my liking, thankfully gets outshone by the teamplay-style presentation during jobs and their tunable modifiers, and the unique character classes and their traits. Although most of its rewarding features add variability to custom loadouts, there's not much else here that, unfortunately, makes it worth spending an effort on. I'd much rather see a sizable number of differences in the job variety, missions, and power fantasy elements that actually heighten the sense of being an FBC operative who's exterminating the evil corruption of the Hiss.

Remedy games are about the experience, and the team nailed that with FBC: Firebreak. While I wouldn’t say it’s in the upper echelon of their titles, Firebreak succeeds in being an entertaining cooperative adventure into the depths of the Oldest House. It’s fresh in a way only Remedy can make; a worthwhile experiment. Thanks to them, I’ll never look at sticky notes the same again.

Remedy Entertainment is a development studio that doesn't need any introduction. The Finnish developer has been around for a very long time, and in the long years of activity, it has released some incredible games that have etched themselves in the minds of those who experienced them, like the first two entries in the Max Payne series, the two entries in the Alan Wake series and Control, the game which effectively kickstarted the Remedy Connected Universe that connects the latter two series, and who knows what else in the future.

Control without the superpowers was always going to be a tough sell. Sadly, FBC: Firebreak makes a pretty appalling case. Moments of supernatural whimsy are few and far between, bogged down by repetitive objectives centering around shooting some pretty mediocre feeling guns.