Remedy's Control Spin-Off, FBC: Firebreak, Takes Inspiration From A Surprising Source

FBC: Firebreak is Remedy's first multiplayer game, and it's jumping into the well-occupied space of co-op PvE shooters. That means it has the benefit of looking to predecessors in the genre to understand what works, what doesn't, and in what ways Firebreak can stand out from the pack. I always love learning about which games developers looked to when making theirs, so I recently asked Remedy's Mike Kayetta, game director on FBC: Firebreak, to talk about the games the team looked at to help guide the scope and style of Remedy's upcoming shooter.

Helldivers 2 was a big help, which makes sense given its popularity. Remedy observed how the team at Arrowhead was able to navigate the ups and downs of the ludicrous third-person shooter to somewhat inform best practices for a game like FBC: Firebreak. Kayetta told me that it helped when Remedy asked, "What's working for them, what's not working for them?". But it was far from the only such game the team looked at. Kayetta name-dropped several games that the team would play together for "analysis" in the studio. Many of them make perfect sense as soon as you learn them.

"If it's a session-based co-op shooter, we've played it into the ground," he said, listing off a parade of recent co-op games including Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Deep Rock Galactic, Aliens: Fireteam Elite, Vermintide, and Darktide. Like Helldivers 2, none of those were all that surprising, but one immediately stuck out the moment Kayetta said it. "We had some interesting additional reference points, too. We looked at Overcooked quite a bit, because we wanted to see--like, that is such a fun type of chaos, where things get out of hand, but you still feel like you have meaningful agency despite things feeling out of hand."

His comments came after I'd played the game for quite a while that morning already, so I could see firsthand the shared DNA between Overcooked and Firebreak, but it was still surprising to hear the comparison out loud. Firebreak's elemental combat and class-based systems meant everyone had a role to play, and it was apparent when anyone in the group had broken that chain of responsibility--as apparent as leaving the burgers on the stove too long and starting a kitchen fire.

Funny enough, though the game's Left 4 Dead-like beats are clear, Kayetta said he doesn't recall the team ever playing that one together--for good reason, however. "Interestingly, it's one of those games that's so big and so famous that I don't feel like we actually played it as a team very often, because everyone just felt like they were already bringing the full wealth of experience and knowledge about it. And so I literally can't think of one time I played Left 4 Dead with anybody on the team. It's one of those games that's just in the DNA of gaming."

FBC: Firebreak arrives on June 17 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5. It'll launch right on Game Pass Ultimate and PlayStation Plus Premium, too. Free updates will follow later this year, bringing more missions and cosmetics into the game, though the game has taken some anti-FOMO steps to keep players from feeling like the game is asking too much of their time.

If you're coming to Remedy's multiplayer game as a lore chaser, here's how FBC: Firebreak fits into the Remedy Connected Universe.