Remedy Entertainment properly revealed its first-ever multiplayer game, FBC: Firebreak, just yesterday, and it's trying to dodge the same fate as countless other online games by getting the shooter into as many hands as possible from the get-go.
FBC: Firebreak might ring a bell if you've ever played the studio's freaky action game Control. The upcoming co-op shooter looks just as wonderfully weird and frantic because it's actually set in the same paranormal Federal Bureau of Control homebase called the Old House, which should explain all the yellow post-it notes everywhere, as up to three firebreakers shoot through what looks like very Left 4 Dead-style missions.
Remedy is keen to avoid the pitfalls of other modern multiplayer games, though. Communications director Thomas Puha tells Xbox Wire that the team didn't want players to feel like logging in every day is a "second job" - it's more a pick-up-and-play experience. But even more importantly, FBC: Firebreak is launching into both Xbox Game Pass and the PS Plus catalogue on day one.
Games usually come to one of the two competing subscription services on launch day, if at all, as the only other outlier that doubled-dipped in the same way is last year's Sea of Stars. The strategy might seem like an eyebrow-raiser, but FBC: Firebreak won't be free-to-play when it launches next year, and we've seen that price tags can be a potentially fatal hurdle for multiplayer games to get over, so the normally "mid-priced title" should at least be able to attract a solid starting playerbase with no barrier to entry on console.
Over on Steam, Remedy notes that its games "look amazing but have high PC requirements." Here here. To allow as many people as possible into The Old House's sometimes moving door, the studio will " aim for a wider range of PC hardware, including Steam Deck," while retaining the team's usual sheen.
For now, see our upcoming games of 2024 and beyond list to find out what else is coming up next.
