FBC Firebreak Preview – Full Remedy Charm in a brilliant classic co-op shooter

The Federal Bureau of Control is infested, and you’re the clean-up crew. FBC: Firebreak, Remedy’s AA spin-off of its phenomenal action game Control, places you and two buddies back into the Oldest House to fight off a seemingly never ending barrage of paranormal nasties.

For our preview, we sat down to play three hours of Remedy’s upcoming shooter on PC, allowing us to not only get to grips with the game’s unique take on the Left 4 Dead co-op loop, but also experience its satisfying progression systems.

In FBC: Firebreak, you select one of six jobs to complete—of which we played three—each with six missions and a slew of difficulty options to grow into. Hot Fix, the very first job, starts with you simply fixing machines, then fixing massive fans that spew fire, then battling a giant furnace monster.

Paper Chase sees you eliminating sticky notes, then fighting sticky note covered enemies who will use their sticky notes to take you over, then fighting a massive Spider-Man 3-esque Sandman creature comprised entirely of sticky notes. His name is Sticky Ricky.

Just like Control itself, FBC: Firebreak is filled with creativity. Alongside it’s mission design, combat isn’t exactly what you’d expect. Yes, there is a substantial number of guns and grenades to use against enemies, but also your dedicated Kits. For example, the Splash Kit which lets you put out fires also lets you wet enemies, which another player can combine with electrical effects to vaporise a group of Hiss.

Some levels we played not only had us fighting hordes of seemingly never-ending Hiss, but also dealing with a number of the paranormal creatures that pop up in the Oldest House. For example, the Traffic Lights turn the game into a Red Light, Green Light, making it so you can only move near the creature if the lights are green. There’s also a terrifying Rubber Duck. Thankfully, special hidden weapons allow you to take these powerful foes out.

FBC: Firebreak is at its best when its at its most chaotic, when you and your buddies are jumping into healing showers together while attempting to run away. The game does lack the epic destruction of Control, but that’s probably for the best. In our three-hour play session of the game, our biggest complaint was of its effects as sometimes they can pile on so much the game can become rather hard to parse.

Nevertheless, Firebreak is as fun as it looks, although its onboarding can be a little clunky. Once the game clicks, it becomes an instant co-op classic, and with a healthy amount of post-launch planned without any additional purchases or battle pass nonsense, it should hopefully have a very long lifespan as well.

For our preview, we also managed to sneak in some solo gameplay with FBC: Firebreak and, while playing with friends is heaps better as with most co-op titles, it was still fun. The Remedy charm that’s been present since Max Payne is well and truly replicated here. In fact, it’s exactly what you’d expect from the studio for its first proper online multiplayer title.

While many are holding out for Control 2 or the Max Payne Remakes—we are as well, don’t worry—FBC: Firebreak is well worth a shot. Time will tell if the game has long legs or not, but with the title launching Day One in Xbox Game Pass and in PlayStation Plus, there’s no reason not to at least give it a shot, but it’s worth more than that in our eyes.

There’s no doubt that this is a very worthy entry in the Control, Alan Wake, not-quite-Quantum-Break universe, and a brilliant platform for some co-op shenannigans. We’re certainly keeping our eyes peeled and our controllers charged for more.