Remedy acknowledges bad first impression for FBC: Firebreak

FBC: Firebreak launched last week but interest in the title quickly fell flat. The game has struggled to garner any significant player base on Steam, and feedback for the game has been quite negative for a variety of reasons. Now, Remedy says it is going over the feedback and preparing changes.

FBC: Firebreak is supposed to be a Control spin-off, taking place in The Oldest House. Unfortunately, the return to this grand playground does not make a very good first impression, with the first hours of the game being bogged down by grindy missions and a lack of interesting starting gear for each class.

Remedy says a large part of this bad first impression is due to a lack of onboarding:

“The game's first hours do not provide a great experience due to a combination of things. Some of this is down to a lack of onboarding (more about that in a bit), explaining the game’s systems, how to take advantage of the tools at your disposal, and a lack of clarity as to what to do in the Jobs and how to do the work effectively”.

This is something I can attest to. As I have PS+ Premium, I gave the game an install on my PS5 at launch and loaded into a few jobs with random groups. The end result was a messy experience as we all fumbled around trying to figure things out on the fly. The game doesn't immediately play to its strengths either, as the starting gear is all very generic and quite boring. Apparently, gameplay does improve once you start to access higher tier weapons.

“The power fantasy isn’t great in the first hours of the game as starting (tier 1) weapons feel weak, and unlocking higher-tier weapons requires a bit too much grinding”, Remedy said. In future updates, Remedy will work on getting players to the ‘fun' quicker.

Hopefully some of these updates don't take too long, as the game could have potential with less grind and quicker and easier access to better gear.

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KitGuru Says: This game made a bad first impression for me, but I'd be willing to give it another chance after updates.

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