FBC: Firebreak Review - Gamecritics.com

These Aren’t The Overtime Benefits I Signed Up For

HIGH Great use of Remedy’s Control aesthetic for a team shooter.

LOW Little interaction between the different weapon classes.

WTF Don’t ask about Sticky Ricky…

I don’t play many first-person shooters. However, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited at the prospect of a multiplayer shooter taking place in the Remedy connected universe (notable residents: Alan Wake and Control). It’s a universe that I love playing single-player titles in, so my interest was high.

Unfortunately, the reality is that FBC: Firebreak fell far short of my expectations. It’s a weird experience like almost every Remedy title is, but its mechanics and gameplay quirks fall flat instead of standing out.

Firebreak’s ask of players is to team up in a squad of three people and clock in for their shift at the Federal Bureau of Control, a fictional government agency that deals with all things ghostly and “paranatural.” In a new initiative called the Firebreak Protocol, FBC management sends teams out into the depths of FBC HQ to tackle the zombified masses of people known as the Hiss, as well as ghosts and strange happenings that have spiraled out of control.

These missions vary in scope, but nearly all of them replicate the Control aesthetic to a T. The soulless, corporate interiors of various office floors were our playground, but more often they felt like killing floors. Each level is oppressive, contrasting most other titles in the genre that take a fantastical or slightly horrifying approach.

In this way, Firebreak takes a different path towards putting players on edge in a zombie shooter, and it’s the game’s biggest success. Rather than being the super-powered heroine of Control, Firebreak puts the player in the shoes of a regular guy with a gun and a home repair kit. The anxiety of going up against a threat that’s normally taken care of by an extraordinary individual is what kept me going. At its best, Firebreak offers the fast-paced excitement of a great Call of Duty: Zombies level, but it can’t maintain that tone. When it wanes, the material feels like the corporate exercises the title is trying to mock.

Each of the five selectable missions are different threats that teams need to clear in the Oldest House, an enigmatic building first shown in Control. Between destroying endlessly multiplying sticky notes to collecting larva from an alien in an office basement, the mission variety is theoretically there. However, these tasks start to get stale after replays of each mission, which are required to progress in the rewards system. These replays are also a great time to practice teamwork with other players, but so many of the roles and tasks that each player on a given team “should complete” often feel disconnected and superfluous.

Starting on the mission design, the way a mission begins is with all three players needing to complete a few tasks toward the overall goal. Sometimes that’s destroying haunted sticky notes, fixing panels on a giant furnace, or exorcising ghosts from the FBC. All the while, a crowd of Hiss zombies is attempting to kill every player while they’re trying to do their jobs.

The problem here is that these tasks often felt like filler to me. Sure, I had to go fix a few panels or load some alien specimens into a cart, but the best parts of the missions are killing the Hiss en masse. It makes the goals feel like hoops to jump through to unlock better gear, instead of being the “meat” of Firebreak. There are standout portions of each mission, sure, like the giant sticky note Sticky Ricky acting as a final boss, or the frantic sprint to load barrels and stop a giant furnace from going supernova. Sadly, there are few of these tremendous moments, and more tasks that boil down to clicking a sequence of buttons in a row to get to the next room.

The “roles” of Firebreak also don’t have implications for gameplay outside of doing the random tasks in each level. Each player is assigned one of three “Crisis Kits” before they play — a Fix Kit, complete with a wrench that can fix electrical panels, a Jump Kit, fitted with an electrical shocker that can charge up powered devices and electrify water, and the Splash Kit, a super soaker on a player’s back that can cleanse players of ailments like poison or burn. Theoretically, all three also have in-game combat uses, but they aren’t as strong as a player’s secondary gun.

If you didn’t guess, the Splash Kit is about the only one that consistently pays off. I would consistently play using the Fix Kit and stick to it, but I wish I had used the Splash Kit more since it could heal damaged players. The problem is none of these kits seemed to matter when it came to deciding the ends of matches, and all of them should be reworked to have greater effects in combat.

Ultimately, Firebreak’s gameplay problem is that the gunplay in this supernatural team-based jaunt is the best portion of the experience — it isn’t a terrible problem to have, but it’s a sign that the missions and classes need design boosts to make them more relevant and compelling.

Firebreak is a new direction in expanding Remedy’s connected universe, but the art direction and aesthetics can only do so much of the heavy lifting when the other aspects aren’t bringing as much to the table. The end result doesn’t stack up to the source material that inspired it, and to this Remedy fan, it could and should be so much better.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Buy FBC: Firebreak – PC – XB- PS

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Remedy Entertainment. It is currently available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the multiplayer mode, and each mission was completed at least once. There are no single-player modes.