FBC: Firebreak is a humorous form of sport, particularly from Treatment Leisure. In an odd first, Treatment — the workforce behind single participant video games like Alan Wake 2 — has pivoted to multiplayer with its newest undertaking.
FBC: Firebreak is a first-person co-op shooter set inside the Treatment Verse. And whereas there’s lots to love about this huge swing from the developer, it actually ought to have simply caught to what it is aware of.
The title’s set simply weeks after the occasions of Management, the place The Oldest Home is run rampant with the Hiss. Holding issues from collapsing are workforce Firebreak, an initiative of FBC brokers who should perform upkeep repairs.
That’s about as a lot lore as you’re going to get, as the sport haphazardly tosses you right into a menu and sends you packing to your first “job”. We wouldn’t count on full-on cutscenes from a multiplayer-first co-op shooter like this, however a wee wink or a nod to the sequence that made this world so interesting within the first place would not have gone amiss.
That being mentioned, FBC has a severe leg up aesthetically attributable to that hyperlink, with the twisted melding of mundane workplaces, brutalist constructions, and a sticky observe or two. Even the white font title playing cards crop up firstly of every run. It’s all fairly gorgeous to have a look at.
However what precisely are you doing in The Oldest Home? Brokers are tasked with taking part in out varied menial jobs akin to repairing air flow programs, storing radiated spheres, or clearing out rooms of sticky observe infestations.
To hold out the roles, gamers have a alternative of three equipment lessons. The Repair Equipment is an engineers class, the place you may make things better with a few swings of a giant outdated wrench. The Bounce Equipment is {an electrical} cost which may energy up varied stations, and doubles as a technique to leap as much as increased ledges or evade enemies. Then there’s the Splash Equipment, a water-spouting cannon used to place out fires and douse teammates to scrub off infections.
A participant with a Repair Equipment can nonetheless put out fires, simply as a Splash Equipment person can nonetheless restore lighting programs. Nonetheless, to take action you’ll must work by way of a sequence of L1 and R1 inputs, type of like calling in stratagems in Helldivers 2. Sounds easy, however these items take longer, and might put you in danger as hordes of Hiss rain down upon you. Actually, you desire a participant with the correct equipment doing the correct job.
These are the basics, and sadly these alone go away Firebreak feeling fairly boring. The start ranges and loadouts lack any type of spice, with missions taking part in out with out a lot fanfare — much more so in case you play the sport in solo.
All the pieces is technically sound, at the least. In actual fact, all of it runs brilliantly on each PS5 and PS5 Professional. The body fee is a steady 60 frames-per-second most of the time, and haptic suggestions on the DualSense controller is first-party ranges of fine. It truly feels surprisingly nice from a studio that primarily works on third-person video games.
However regardless of this, these opening ranges, which each and every participant should grind by way of, really feel lifeless, and it truthfully takes some time earlier than the illusion of a spark is present in Firebreak.
The 5 missions inside the sport have three clearance ranges, every including a brand new room to the run and a boss or boss-like problem. There are additionally problem tiers so as to add to the carnage, after which corruptions that are mainly modifiers that may make your life hell.
As you come again from every run, you’ll earn XP and Misplaced Facets, that are used to unlock new weapons, gear, and perks. Tougher runs can earn distinctive currencies used to improve perks even additional. With loads of perks and as much as simply 9 slots per equipment, loadouts can actually begin to evolve.
As soon as all of these items are thrown into the combo, FBC’s programs and gameplay begin to click on much more. The roles introduced on by your equipment turn into key elements to success, workforce coordination is extra essential, and maintaining a tally of ammunition, well being, and most significantly standing results like hearth, frost, or radiation turn into paramount.
And as you’ll count on, there’s that Treatment quirkiness in there. Every equipment ultimately unlocks an final weapon just like the lava-spewing teapot gun, or the piggy financial institution coin storm. What’s extra, every stage additionally has some form of mechanic like a bubblegum-pink gunk that expands and blocks corridors, or sticky-note males that dash in the direction of you. And all of that is with pretty spectacular Hiss numbers on display screen, with hordes sprinting in the direction of you with manic pace.
Whereas that is the place efficiency is at its choppiest, that excellent storm of mechanics, enemies, kits, and loadouts brings a little bit of the spark that we have been hoping for when the developer first introduced this sport. It has a zany and manic power about it that we suspect lots of people will actually like.
Nonetheless, for us, these moments of mania and Treatment seasoning are too few and much between, and truthfully, the sport doesn’t have sufficient of a hook to maintain us coming again for extra.
The workforce’s been upfront in saying it doesn’t wish to go the dwell service route of demanding your time and continuous dedication to the sport — though submit launch content material is coming. It’s a refreshing stance that was additionally taken with FromSoftware’s Elden Ring Nightreign.
Nonetheless, the place Nightreign is enjoyable from the beginning and solely acquired higher as you bought nearer to the top of its journey, Firebreak is simply okay for probably the most half, lastly beginning to get good as you attain the later stuff — after which it simply fizzles out. It doesn’t have that another spherical power, and profitable extractions all the time really feel like a little bit of an anticlimax.
Conclusion
FBC: Firebreak stings somewhat, as a result of it has a lot of what we’re searching for in a co-op shooter. It’s acquired the killer world and aesthetic, it’s acquired quirky powers and function based mostly kits, it’s acquired tight first-person gameplay, and doesn’t require you to grind issues out for dozens of hours. Nonetheless, regardless of all of that, Firebreak’s simply positive, and sarcastically lacks the hearth that we count on from Treatment’s output. It’s a enjoyable, informal time, however you’ll play it, you’ll end it, and earlier than lengthy you’ll overlook about it and want you had been taking part in Management 2 as an alternative.
