Here's How FBC: Firebreak Fits Into The Remedy Connected Universe

When FBC: Firebreak arrives on June 17, it will be the latest game to add to the Remedy Connected Universe. It's inherently a Control spin-off, even being set in the same liminal bureaucratic maze known as the Oldest House, so there's no question whether it would contribute to Remedy's Marvel-like spider web of storytelling, but after speaking to the team, we now know a bit more about how it will contribute to that connected universe.

We know the game is set six years after the events of Control. Like the 13 real-time years between both the fictional events and releases of Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2, the time between 2019's Control and 2025's FBC: Firebreak will mirror the real world. In that span, the Oldest House has remained locked down and the Hiss did not let up.

That's meant anyone outside of the building hasn't been able to get in, apparently. Worse, it means the unfortunate agents who were inside the shapeshifting hub that day have spent more than half a decade stuck inside with the Hiss threat. In gameplay terms, this will see player-characters running low on standard-issue supplies, resulting in them improvising with unique weapons and gear for the three-player co-op game. Still, since the game is without cutscenes or heavy exposition, lore devotees like me might wonder what else the game can teach them about the RCU. Don't worry, game director Mike Kayetta told GameSpot; there's still material there to be investigated.

"We knew that we wanted to find ways to connect back to the [RCU] and expose things going on, especially about this time period and these people," he said, revealing that a lot of the lore will be found during loading screens. "You're not going to be able to collect documents in the game and view them--although we have talked about if that's something people want later, we'll look at doing that. But for now, we were like, 'Where are the places that we can fit things in?'

"And we identified the loading screens as one of these places where you can get snippets of information. So we're actually going to be introducing a bunch of additional Control lore through those screens. And we're randomizing it so that the more you play--even though you're not collecting them--the more hours you put into the game, the more you're going to actually start seeing more and more interesting things that may or may not connect to each other and to other events going on."

Kayetta said additional lore will drip out through the things characters say, likening it to Left 4 Dead's way of doing things. "We talked about not doing a lot of direct storytelling for a lot of reasons. We believe this is very counter to the experience, just like Left 4 Dead. It's one of the reasons they chose zombies, because you just go in and you know what zombies are [...] One of the cosmetics that we're adding to the game over time is voice packs. And each of those voice packs has a custom script, all of the lines, not just a reaction like, 'Oh, there's an enemy over there,' but also all the idle or narrative-based lines that they say.

"And our goal right now is that you could be playing this for, like, 20 hours and still actually be hearing new things. So they're all small, right? Because we don't want to do cutscenes and big storytelling, but they do add up to something bigger and deeper and more interesting over time. So, if you are a lore guy, you're not going to get that wild canvas that is something like Alan Wake, but we're also not ignoring it. We're taking it very seriously, and Clay [Murphy], who wrote Control, is helping work on a lot of these things too."

Though Kayetta didn't say this explicitly, I expect some of what FBC: Firebreak reveals about the future of Control 2 will be there for the lore divers to parse through. To that end, I'd bet my last pack of legally distinct Alan Wake Remastered flashlight batteries that we'll see the name Chester Bless, or the Blessed Organization, appear in one or more of those loading screens. If that name is new to you, you might enjoy the deep dive that is our earlier look-ahead on the RCU.

FBC: Firebreak arrives on June 17 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5. It'll launch on Game Pass Ultimate and PlayStation Plus Premium, too. For more on the game, you can also check out our much longer preview of the game, detailing its punk spirit and defiant design sensibilities. We also have a story that reveals an unexpected inspiration for the co-op game.