Remedy Entertainment’s take on a first-person co-op shooter,FBC: Firebreak,appeared doomedbased on the game’s early Steam player numbers, which barely broke four figures. However, Remedy has revealed in a social media post that FBC: Firebreak has had over 1 million unique players since launch, a feat I never thought possible based on the aforementioned Steam numbers.
There are a myriad of potential explanations for how FBC: Firebreak has attracted over a million players while only havinga 24-hour concurrent player peakof 169 on Steam. The most likely explanation is that the game is a big hit on Game Pass, a platform that allows players to play FBC: Firebreak without forking over $40. FBC: Firebreak is also available on PlayStation Plus, PlayStation’s equivalent.
FBC: Firebreak Has Hit 1 Million Players
FBC: Firebreak is currently sitting ata ‘Mixed’ review scoreon Steam, with players complaining about the lack of variety in both missions and weapons. Essentially, you don’t need to play FBC: Firebreak for a very long time to experience everything the game has to offer, which is a big no-no in our generation of live-service forever grinds.
Our own Eric Switzer was complimentary of this aspect of FBC: Firebreak in his3.5/5 review, saying, “Firebreak is completely free of the compulsion systems that have defined the Fortnite generation of online games.” Unfortunately, Eric also wasn’t that big a fan of the game’s core loop.
Remedy likely isn’t too disappointed by the performance of FBC: Firebreak, given it was a spin-off and not one of the studio’s staple single-player offerings. Remedy is currently working on a sequel to Control, as well as full remakes of Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.
The ending of Alan Wake 2’s Lake House expansion contained a fairly explicit teaser for Control 2, emphasizing the connectivity of the ‘Remedyverse’, the fan-title of Remedy Entertainment’s collective series. We know Control 2 is in full production, and Remedy predicts the game will need to sell between 3 and 4 million copies to break even.
FBC: Firebreak is currently available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
