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FBC Firebreak
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FBC Firebreak Review: Doing its part

This Control spin-off may be different from what fans expect, but it's still damn fun.

Despite a general feeling that Remedy can do no wrong, I walked out of a hands-on FBC Firebreak preview last month year just a tad concerned. Paired with two other journos from (quite literally) halfway around the world, my experience was incredibly laggy; I admittedly didn’t help matters by playing via Steam with the game installed on an HDD rather than an SSD.

Regardless of my experience, others may have entirely different worries — despite being a Control spin-off, Firebreak is anything but. This is Remedy’s debut first-person shooter, also doing double duty as a co-op extraction exercise.

Thankfully, playing alone and in two-player, Oceania-based co-op has alleviated my concerns and has given me the tools to address others’. Let me assure you: FBC Firebreak is a chaotic, engaging romp that gleefully retains Remedy’s quirkiness throughout.

Firebreak team
Welcome to the Firebreak team.

Setting the stage, Firebreak is a no-frills shooter with little narrative but a lot of lore behind it. Set six years after the events of Control, Bureau employees who’ve been trapped in the Oldest House as part of an ongoing lockdown have adapted. Former rangers, pencil pushers, and maybe even janitors have left their former careers behind to volunteer for the titular Firebreak, a team that sets off on excursions to prevent loss of life or reduce danger. 

If you’ve played Control, things will look very familiar. You’ll roam the halls of the administration area, the furnace, and even the black rock quarry fulfilling tasks and meeting objectives. All the while, evil Hiss of all manner will be on the attack, trying to prevent you from accomplishing your goals.

At present Firebreak has three different classes, all equally useful within any of its five available jobs. The Fix Kit will arm you with a wrench for fixing, the the Jump Kit will let you electrify things that require power, and the Splash Kit makes you the Firebreak’s literal firefighter.

Firebreak ammo
Grab some ammo, or jump in the shower to put out a fire and restore health.

Set within the scorching confines of the furnace, the Splash Kit is a literal lifesaver within the Hot Fix job. There, you’ll be able to use your special tool to put out fires, but can also turn your stream onto your team to cool them down and prevent further damage. Let it be known here: status effects are a big part of Firebreak‘s mix. 

The Fix Kit is also useful, repairing emergency showers that not only provide a reprieve from the heat in the same scenario, but all-important health. Finally, the Jump Kit will let you restore power to the furnace’s large exhaust fans, one of the major objectives within the job itself. While any of the team can take on these tasks, it’s best to work together and pair the right tool for the right task.

The level of difficulty you’ll encounter with each run is entirely up to your group. In addition to standard difficulty — here called a threat level, and with options including easy, normal, hard, and extreme — you’ll also be able to set a clearance level that dictates just how many challenge rooms you’ll need to clear. Finally, you can add corrupted items to the mix; if they’re not sorted, you’ll be at the mercy of faster enemies, or any other number of nerfs to your team.

Firebreak hiss
The Hiss are waiting to take you out.

I started off playing alone and made it through a number of difficulties on my own — slowly and very methodically, I should add — before roping two friends together and playing in a full group of three. There are advantages to each, of course, though either option is viable. As you increase difficulty and obstacles, having a team behind you becomes a must.

It was here that my experience with the game proved invaluable with my friends. Using PS5 voice chat, I was able to go through the roles and attributes of each class as we started off, directing my team to the things they could do best rather than simply beelining for objectives and shooting bad guys. While some gameplay elements are detailed to players, others get lost in the fray quite easily; the method to deal with a corrupted item is one such example.

In conversation with fellow journos, I realised that quite a few weren’t aware of status effects that were causing them issues. Letting fires run rampant within the furnace will cause players to light on fire, and that’s generally bad. Because in-game chat isn’t available through Firebreak proper, you’ll likely encounter issues attempting to communicate some of these concepts to new players.

FBC-Firebreak-tools-Hot-Fix
They say a Firebreaker is only as good as their tools…

As in Control but in entirely different ways, Firebreak‘s gunplay is tight. There’s a lot of satisfaction to be had either pulling off a headshot with a revolver, or resorting to a shotgun to pick a Hiss Elevated from the air. I enjoy the revolver so much I’ve swapped it out accordingly in each of my loadouts.

Speaking of loadouts, exploration within each job is key to unlock bigger and better items to use. This is accomplished by finding weaponry you can use then and there — like black rock infused weapons that deal with said corrupted items — or intel that can be used to unlock further tools between jobs. With only five job variations to choose from a present — though two more will be added down the line, and at no further cost — it’s nice to have something that keeps things feeling fresh.

Easy to start, sometimes difficult to understand, and challenging to master, FBC Firebreak is nevertheless a fun little sideshow while we wait for Control 2 proper. An extraction shooter at its heart (though only to a different floor and not from the Oldest House proper), it’s a lovely juggling act that tasks you to balance shooting, puzzles, and environmental hurdles. Enjoyable alone, with friends, or randoms, Firebreak is either available at a low cost ($39.99 USD) or ‘free’ if you’ve got Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation Plus.

Firebreak post it
Take on additional challenges… like this post-it monster.

And, because it’s a Remedy joint, I’ve a feeling I’ve only scratched the surface of several larger puzzles as part of my pre-release playthrough. Giant question marks spray painted all throughout jobs surely aren’t just for aesthetics.

FBC Firebreak is available right this second on Windows PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5, also available on all tiers of Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus.

8
GREAT

FBC Firebreak was reviewed using promotional codes on PS5, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.

FBC Firebreak

17 June 2025
PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X
 

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About the author

Steve Wright

Steve's the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Stevivor.com, the country’s leading independent video games outlet. Steve arrived in Australia back in 2001 on what was meant to be a three-month working holiday before deciding to emigrate and, eventually, becoming a citizen.

Stevivor is a combination of ‘Steve’ and ‘Survivor’, which made more sense back in 2001 when Jeff Probst was up in Queensland. The site started as Steve’s travel blog before transitioning over into video games.

Aside from video games, Steve has interests in hockey and Star Trek, playing the former and helping to cover video games about the latter on TrekMovie.com. By day, Steve works as the communications manager of the peak body representing Victorians as they age.