Remedy's FBC Firebreak Is More Left 4 Dead Than Live-Service, And That's The Beauty Of It

Remedy is a studio known for disappearing into its work for several years, then emerging with an inventive, often mind-bending, single-player game such as Max Payne, Alan Wake, or Control. But the studio has grown a lot lately, becoming a team juggling several projects simultaneously. Alongside the upcoming Max Payne remakes and Control 2, Remedy is also trying something very different from its past games. FBC Firebreak is a three-player co-op PvE first-person shooter set in The Oldest House, the setting for Control. I recently got to see a hands-off preview of the game, which strives to combine the team's signature strangeness with the pick-up-and-play appeal of a modern multiplayer shooter. But its best feat may be what it doesn't want to be: your part-time job.

In FBC Firebreak, teams of three players go on missions called Jobs, in which they have to cleanse various sections of the unpredictable Oldest House, fighting The Hiss with an array of weapons that feels decidedly Remedy-like. Control's wide variety of Hiss enemies was on exciting display in the mission I saw, called Paper Chase, in which FBC first responders had to make it through hordes of corrupted agents using weapons like a piggy-bank mallet, all before fighting a gigantic boss monster that had formed from millions of sticky notes, like a chaotic blend of Office Space and Ghostbusters.

FBC Firebreak leans into some classic co-op mechanics, such as complementary player builds, but it leans into Remedy's weirdness, too.

The demo I saw showed off several "Kits," each of them meant to lean into a type of play and collectively complement each other in a three-person squad. The Jump Kit uses electricity abilities and offers buffs to mobility; the Fix Kit is a tanky offering with a huge wrench for melee attacks; the Splash Kit is designed as a support class that can disrupt the environment using a water-based loadout.

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