FBC: Firebreak is a weird game. It’s weird for Remedy in that it’s simultaneously their first FPS, first Multiplayer-game, first Multiplayer-Only game, and first sorta-live-service game. It’s also just objectively weird, and not the “normal” kind of Remedy weird.

Firebreak plays like a shorter-form cross between Deep Rock Galactic and Left 4 Dead (et. al), set in Control’s The Oldest House. It’s a first-person horde shooter at its core like L4D, you’re dropped in as a random low-level employee of the Federal Bureau of Control sent in to kill more of the Hiss because they apparently just never left. The game also implies that there is perma-death, and every time you “respawn” you’re actually embodying a fresh volunteer sent down into the fray. But it’s not just a straight horde shooter, there’s also three classes with different kits and utilities with each of them specializing in one of the various non-combat things you’re expected to do in-game (Fix Stuff, Charge Stuff, Extinguish Fires).

There are 5 maps (for now, at least) and each one sends you through a series of three “zones” of The Oldest House where you’ll have to do some sort of objectives while mowing down waves and waves of Hiss, each eventually wrapping with some sort of encounter with an Empowered Object, and then an escape sequence to get back to your elevator and go home. Paper Chase is the mission I’ve played the most of: it starts in offices absolutely plastered with infinitely auto-replicating post-it notes and you have to clear out hundreds of thousands of post-its by shooting them. Then you’ve got a big combat encounter where you’re fighting off Hiss and sentient post-it golems running all over the place. Then finally you’re put up against Sticky Ricky, an enormous angry hulking mass of post-its who you must calm down (with your bullets and electrification) before escaping.

The levels are all sorta like this, and they’re all pretty great, except the one where you’re constantly freezing. The levels themselves are fine, but the way they were stretched out is sorta shameless. To stretch this content as far as they could, they make you play through each level in tiers. The first time you play a level you can only do the “First” zone, then the first two, then finally all three, then you can come back and play it at higher difficulties. It’s fine, you only have to unlock the tiers once, and thankfully only your party lead has to have something unlocked for you to be allowed to play it, you don’t have to all be synced up.

Similarly, the different classes’ kits are Different Enough, but they shamelessly stretched it out so you don’t just have access to everything right off the rip: you have to play a bunch to unlock your “item”, then even more to get your Empowered Object which acts as your Ultimate. Good news: This was really egregious at launch, but they patched it within the first week of the game! It’s still there, but it’s nowhere near as painful as it used to be. Initially everything was in one massive list of unlockables, and it forced you to spend the basic currency on cosmetics to unlock the next “page” that might have a core piece of your kit on it. Thankfully that’s been patched to separate cosmetics and upgrades.

The real problem with the game is that it’s just a little too janky. It feels like a game late in early access. It’s totally playable, it works, but there’s a lot of stuff that’s just weird. Mechanics with zero explanation, incomprehensible UI choices, areas of the map you can get stuck in (that can then suck in your buddies when they try to save you), giant room-spanning AoE attacks that happen with zero warning, graphical glitches where the world-state loses sync between players, just all manner of goofy stuff. Good news is the team is highly communicative about what they’re working on, and highly receptive to player feedback, Bad news is that it just doesn’t feel fully baked yet, and that’s sad because it still feels good overall.

If I paid $40 for this I’d be disappointed. Thankfully I didn’t, and I just grabbed it through Game Pass. Hopefully this will give it enough of a lifespan to get finished. If you’ve got Game Pass or PS Plus or whatever and have a couple buddies to experience the jank and laugh at it together, go nuts. Hopefully it will eventually be worth $40, but just it isn’t there right now.