‘FBC: Firebreak’ Review: An FPS Set in the ‘Control’ Universe, but You Wouldn’t Know It

Have you played Control? If you haven’t, don’t expect co-operative first-person shooter FBC: Firebreak to tell you that the Federal Bureau of Control uses the Oldest House, the setting of this game, to contain and experiment on paranatural objects. Or that the Hiss are resonant forces that have breached the building and threaten to spill out into the outside world. It’s almost as if the developers at Remedy figured that loose lips sink ships, perhaps hoping to sustain enough mystery to keep players going, but the end result is that FBC: Firebreak feels disconnected from the Control universe, which, in turn, perversely emphasizes just how far the style of game is from the one that Remedy is known for.

Between the Hiss creatures in this game coming across as bog-standard zombies—with an occasional flourish, like a creep that flies around on an office chair—and the efforts of your undertrained Firebreak squad making no lasting impact, the game is practically an invitation to frustration. It takes hours of grinding before FBC: Firebreak even starts to get weird, and even then, it only does so in small, dissatisfying doses. Whereas Control was about finding the special in the mundane, FBC: Firebreak’s overly formulaic gunplay and limited foes find a way to turn some creative mission concepts back into ordinary, monotonous work.

At first, FBC: Firebreak seems to be trying to suck in fans of co-op shooters by handing you basic weapons like a revolver, submachine gun, or shotgun. You’ll have to successfully complete many runs with those to unlock the more compelling weapons, like an explosive boombox trap or an angry, flame-spewing teapot. By then, though, you’ll realize that missions largely hinge on you having to avoid fights in favor of making repairs. The lurid office spaces of the Oldest House, with their viral post-it notes, gummy pink goo, and screen-blurring anomalies, as well as the quarry festooned with harvestable radioactive growths, are enjoyable and creepy to explore, but only when you’re not having to focus on endless waves of Hiss enemies.

Players choose one of three kits at the start, determining what sort of equipment they can most easily repair: Mechanics can swing a wrench to fix broken objects, engineers can fire an electrical gun to restore power, and firefighters can cool down players and douse fires. FBC: Firebreak has but five missions at launch (each with three zones), and the in-game reason to replay them is that you’re saddled with faulty weapons at the start. To improve, you’ll have to seek out folders of Lost Assets and Research Samples in order to requisition more powerful weapons and research and upgrade perks that provide basic functionality, like faster reloading. Which wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t such a punishing loop, as it never feels as if you’re being promoted so much as you’re being asked to spend more time working for less of a reward.

Worse, beyond their initial novelty, the missions lack any sense of surprise. For instance, once you’ve figured out that you need to use sprinkler systems and showers to stay cool while navigating one level’s heated ducts, you can play this scenario on autopilot. Once you’ve been possessed by sentient post-it notes while on another job, you’ve seen everything that level has to offer, meaning that you’ll have to tolerate tedium as you clear out those ominous stickies. There’s just too little variety throughout the game, and while enemy density and exact objective locations may change, the overall maps and the specific tasks remain the same every time.

This is true even on harder difficulties, which just throw more powerful enemies more frequently at you, while decreasing the effectiveness of ammo and healing stations. Corrupted Objects, which you can enable once you’ve beaten all three clearances for a given job, are meant to address this, but their effects only really serve to make combat feel even more unbalanced, as when a stapler boosts enemy health and a snare drum speeds enemies up. The more Hiss there are on screen at one time, the less terrifying they feel, and the game becomes generic, less of a cooperative shooter and more like one of those idle mobile games where you just stand your ground, hope your equipment is upgraded enough, and fire into a horde of charging monsters.

This game was reviewed with a code provided by Tara Bruno PR.