{"id":848296,"date":"2025-05-14T19:12:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T00:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/14\/why-remedy-entertainment-built-fbc-firebreak-around-the-players-schedule-not-the-other-way-around\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T19:12:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T00:12:17","slug":"why-remedy-entertainment-built-fbc-firebreak-around-the-players-schedule-not-the-other-way-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/14\/why-remedy-entertainment-built-fbc-firebreak-around-the-players-schedule-not-the-other-way-around\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Remedy Entertainment built FBC Firebreak around the player’s schedule, not the other way around"},"content":{"rendered":"

Entertainment <\/p>\n

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\"Entertainment<\/p>\n

Image via Remedy Entertainment.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Remedy Entertainment has a history of being experimental with genre favorites like <\/span>Alan Wake 2<\/span><\/span> and <\/span>Control<\/span><\/span>, but largely sticking to the (comparatively) safe waters of premium single-player games. Now Remedy is using the setting of <\/span>Control<\/span><\/span> as a launching pad for a live service co-op shooter called <\/span>FBC Firebreak,<\/a><\/span> their first crack at an online co-op game about contending with The Oldest House following a new lockdown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Producing an online live service game these days is <\/span>an increasingly risky business<\/a><\/span> that many developers <\/span>have struggled with<\/a><\/span>. A key factor is that playing a live service game and keeping up with the content and other players is time-consuming\u2014and only so many games can operate within that space at a given time. With that, the developers at Remedy Entertainment have built their take on an online live service game that not only allows players to tune the activities to match their pace, but also offer a way for players to take in as much as they want when they want.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a chat with Game Developer, game director Mike Kayatta explained that Remedy is expanding the ‘Remedy Connected Universe’ further, while also building an online co-op game that’s all about getting players right into the action and progressing at their own pace\u2014all to build a sustainable live service that can attract players without plenty of time on their hands, and how they’re ensuring players who don’t have a lot of free time won’t feel left behind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:<\/span>In Skin Deep, ‘cartoon logic’ helps players understand complicated gameplay<\/a><\/p>\n

An online game built around the player’s schedule<\/h2>\n

In <\/span>FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span>, squads of 3 players are tasked with completing various missions within The Oldest House\u2014the extradimensional office building from the original <\/span>Control\u2014<\/span><\/span>using jerry-rigged equipment and weapons to contain rogue Objects of Power or halt the invasion of the otherworldly monsters known as the Hiss. <\/span>FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span> stands out in the live service space by providing more surreal objectives, like a mission called “Paper Chase,” where players hunt supernatural sticky notes.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Kayatta, <\/span>FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span> and its first-person, co-op-driven gameplay have been long brewing at Remedy. The concept itself stretches back to the original’s conceit of contending with a setting that’s actively working against players.<\/span><\/p>\n

“One of my favorite pieces of <\/span>Control <\/span><\/span>concept art is of an FBC employee trying to play a game of pool, but the floor has shifted one end of the table just enough to ruin his game. This is pretty much how we think about the Oldest House in <\/span>FBC: Firebreak<\/span><\/span>,” said the game director. “It’s a powerful and mysterious building, yes, but there’s also a certain level of canonical ‘grounded absurdity,’ it produces that’s perfect for our type of experience.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:<\/span>Is Blue Prince’s success due to ‘social play?’<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Entertainment<\/p>\n

Image via Remedy Entertainment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“But even aside from those tonal opportunities, the House’s shifting and unknowable nature, and the fact that it can connect to other dimensions, gives us all the room we’ll ever need to do what’s best for Firebreak without violating what makes <\/span>Control<\/span><\/span>, <\/span>Control<\/span><\/span>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

On the surface, the concept of <\/span>FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span> recalls similar efforts from other developers attempting a stand-alone multiplayer game based on a single-player experience, another example being the upcoming <\/span>Elden Ring: Nightreign<\/span><\/span>. What makes <\/span>FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span> particularly interesting is that it’s not only leveraging the weirdness of the <\/span>Control <\/span><\/span>setting, but it’s also an online game that seeks to remedy (pun intended) a growing problem with live-service games. Simply put, there’s never enough time to play all the games out there while meeting the investments they expect from players.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kayatta stated that <\/span>FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span> was all about removing the familiar pain points and sense of FOMO found in online games. To them, the <\/span>Control <\/span><\/span>spin-off aimed to be a game that players could play “on their terms, and not on the games.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:<\/span>Huge donation will help The Strong preserve the history of defunct Saints Row developer Volition<\/a><\/p>\n

Amusingly, Kayatta said the team at Remedy took inspiration from their own busy schedules as game developers, studying the pace of how they kept up with modern online games.<\/span><\/p>\n

FBC Firebreak<\/span> lets players set their own progression pace<\/h2>\n

The developers of <\/span>FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span> seek to solve the live-service dilemma with two solutions. First, all players can unlock key weapons and upgrades for their Crisis Kits (the game’s take on class types), all from playing the game’s set of missions and collecting resources. As players rank up their Requisitions\u2014the game’s take on the unlock system\u2014they can spend points to unlock whatever they like, which includes new weapons, kit upgrades, and other add-ons to modify their loadouts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second solution, and most interesting to <\/span>FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span>‘s structure, is the customizable objectives and encounter difficulties. Before each job, the team leader can tune the enemy variety and spawn rate to different intensity levels while also setting the number of objectives needed to clear the mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

This means players can can have a mission with limited objectives but high enemy frequency, presenting a one-stage encounter with an onslaught of enemies. Conversely, they can customize the same mission to have a larger set of objectives, but with a lower frequency of enemies, making it more of an atmospheric, task-focused mission that culminates in a boss encounter.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Entertainment<\/p>\n

Image via Remedy Entertainment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“With a multiplayer game, it’s important to consider how your game slots into people’s lives,” he said. “In co-op, especially, friend groups are stepping in with an unpredictable set of needs: How experienced is each group member? How much time do they have? Are they treating the game session like a phone call, where they just want something to do in the background while talking about something personal?”<\/span><\/p>\n

“And you can’t solve this for a player forever because the same person who wants to zone out one night for thirty minutes sometimes turns around and wants to hyper-coordinate for two hours the next night. This goes back to putting the game on the players’ terms instead of ours; we wanted to give you those controls so that <\/span>Firebreak <\/span><\/span>can meet you where you are on any given day.”<\/span><\/p>\n

FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span>‘s approach to challenge and tuning of the experience is flexible by design, which feels like an oddity among other games that push players towards timed battle passes or monthly events.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Kayatta, building the game’s structure and more flexible approach to progression was all about removing potential barriers that so many other live service games have, to provide an online game that players of whatever time investment can get something out of. Remedy axed other popular live service features like dense statistics (think damage, buff, and debuff percentages) because it made players care about “min-maxing and tracking metas.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“That in turn, can create barriers to people who don’t want to be pressured into thinking about anything that’s not directly in front of them,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s an unconventional strategy to drive retention by asking players for <\/span>less<\/span><\/span> engagement, but Kayatta said targeting those busy everyday players will be key to <\/span>FBC Firebreak<\/span><\/span>‘s success.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We just wanted to make a game that players without a lot of time could enjoy, which feels like it describes a lot of gamers these days,” he concluded. “Some people lose their time to work or to their kids. Others are among the hundreds of incredible games destroying their backlogs. Some poor suckers, like me, lose time to both.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Too many games ask too much of their players, especially in the multiplayer space.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Entertainment About the Author<\/h2>\n
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\"Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n

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Contributor<\/p>\n

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Alessandro Fillari is a writer\/editor who has covered the games, tech, and entertainment industries for more than 12 years. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Alessandro Fillari<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image via Remedy Entertainment. Remedy Entertainment has a history of being experimental with genre favorites like Alan Wake 2 and Control , but largely sticking to the (comparatively) safe waters of premium single-player games. Now Remedy is using the setting of Control as a launching pad for a live service co-op shooter called FBC Firebreak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":848297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1798,26548],"tags":[14293,12570],"class_list":{"0":"post-848296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"category-remedy","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-remedy"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}