FBC: Firebreak is a humorous type 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 a lot to love about this large 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 resulting from that hyperlink, with the twisted melding of mundane places of work, brutalist buildings, and a sticky word or two. Even the white font title playing cards crop up at the start of every run. It’s all fairly beautiful to take a look at.
However what precisely are you doing in The Oldest Home? Brokers are tasked with taking part in out varied menial jobs similar to repairing air flow programs, storing radiated spheres, or clearing out rooms of sticky word infestations.
To hold out the roles, gamers have a alternative of three package lessons. The Repair Equipment is an engineers class, the place you’ll be able to sort things with a few swings of an enormous outdated wrench. The Bounce Equipment is {an electrical} cost which might energy up varied stations, and doubles as a solution to leap as much as greater 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 consumer can nonetheless restore lighting programs. Nonetheless, to take action you’ll need to work via a sequence of L1 and R1 inputs, form of like calling in stratagems in Helldivers 2. Sounds easy, however this stuff take longer, and may put you in danger as hordes of Hiss rain down upon you. Actually, you need a participant with the precise package doing the precise job.
These are the basics, and sadly these alone depart 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 things is technically sound, no less than. In truth, all of it runs brilliantly on each PS5 and PS5 Professional. The body charge is a secure 60 frames-per-second more often than not, 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 via, really feel lifeless, and it actually 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 principally modifiers that may make your life hell.
As you come again from every run, you’ll earn XP and Misplaced Points, 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 package, loadouts can actually begin to evolve.
As soon as all of this stuff are thrown into the combo, FBC’s programs and gameplay begin to click on much more. The roles introduced on by your package turn out to be key elements to success, workforce coordination is extra vital, and keeping track of ammunition, well being, and most significantly standing results like fireplace, frost, or radiation turn out to be paramount.
And as you’ll count on, there’s that Treatment quirkiness in there. Every package 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 type of mechanic like a bubblegum-pink gunk that expands and blocks corridors, or sticky-note males that dash in direction of you. And all of that is with pretty spectacular Hiss numbers on display, with hordes sprinting in direction of you with manic velocity.
Whereas that is the place efficiency is at its choppiest, that good 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 vitality 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 actually, 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 reside service route of demanding your time and continuous dedication to the sport — though put up 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 received higher as you bought nearer to the tip of its journey, Firebreak is simply okay for essentially 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 vitality, 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 on the lookout for in a co-op shooter. It’s received the killer world and aesthetic, it’s received quirky powers and function primarily based kits, it’s received 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 advantageous, and mockingly lacks the fireplace 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 neglect about it and want you had been taking part in Management 2 as an alternative.
