Items filtered by date: Sunday, 23 March 2025

Remedy is a beloved developer in the gaming industry, responsible for creating surreal single-player experiences like Control and Alan Wake. However, its next game, FBC: Firebreak, is a multiplayer game, which prompted many questions from the studio's fans. To answer some of those questions, Remedy debuted a new trailer during the Future Games Show Spring Showcase and supplemented it with an additional trailer on its own page and a PS blog post, written by community manager Julius Fondem.

Both trailers are gameplay-forward, showing off one of Firebreak's missions, known here as "Jobs," called Paper Chase. Since the game is set in the Federal Bureau of Control, mundane objects gain supernatural properties, which is both a boon and a bane to firebreakers. Paper Chase shows the hostile side of the two, as yellow sticky notes take over the surfaces of the map. It's the players' job to clear them off using bullets and explosives, while also gunning down the hordes of aggressive zombie-like monsters.

The second trailer, titled "Community First Look" features developer interviews that explain their creative approach to this game mode. "Is the idea something that could only happen in the Oldest House and that only Remedy as a developer would do?" development coordinator Jalmari Kunnari asks. "If the answer is yes to both of those questions, then it usually means we are on the right track." 

The quote works as a catch-all explanation for pretty much everything we see in the trailers. Touch too many sticky notes and your character will become possessed by them, becoming a sticky note monstrosity of sorts. You can clean them off in the showers, but unless the heaters are on, you'll be cold and uncomfortable, losing movement speed as a result. If that wasn't wacky enough, the final boss is a sticky note colossus called "Sticky Ricky."

Players are armed with plenty of tools to fight back with, however. Unlike the superpowered protagonists of other Remedy games, firebreakers are equipped with supernatural objects. Various weapons appear in the footage, but the PS Blog post focuses on Altered Augments, particularly unhinged additions to a Crisis Kit, which is a firebreaker's loadout. The Piggy Bank creates a deadly tornado of coins, the Teapot turns your ammo into boiling water, and the Garden Gnome summons a terrifying lightning storm (and haunts my dreams, though I think that's more of a personal problem). Notably, all three items also damage teammates, so you'll have to time your attacks carefully.

The community trailer ends with the reassurance that all post-launch content will be added in free updates, so there's no need to worry about game modes or weapons locked behind a paywall. "This isn’t a new hobby that you need to log onto every day for rewards," the PS Blog reads. "None of that FOMO stuff here." We'll see for ourselves when the game launches this summer.