FBC: Firebreak is a three-player cooperative first-person shooter set in the Control universe. Remedy Entertainment developed it and published it. This is the studio’s first self-published game. I played the PlayStation 5 version of the June 17, 2025 launch. List price is $39.99 on Steam, Epic, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series. Deluxe is $49.99 and adds cosmetics and voice packs. On day one it was also on PC Game Pass, Game Pass Ultimate, and PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium. It is not Control 2.
You play the Firebreak unit. The Federal Bureau of Control sends first responders into the Oldest House to contain paranatural crises that have already been running. The building is under an otherworldly siege and has been for years. Firebreak is the crew sent back in to restore order on a single floor at a time. Your work is a Job, not a campaign chapter.
What a Session Looks Like
You pick a Crisis Kit, set Threat Level and Clearance Level, and drop into a Job. Threat Level sets how hard the combat hits. Clearance Level sets how long and how tangled the work gets. Raising Clearance stretches the Job you already selected. It does not add a new map. At launch the Job list is Paper Chase, Hot Fix, Freezer Duty, and Frequency Shift. Each Job is a crisis with its own objective and its own slice of the House.
The loop is the same every time you queue. Contain the crisis, extract, and open the menu again. A higher Clearance on Hot Fix adds steps on the same floor. A higher Threat on Frequency Shift adds resistance on the way to the objective. The Hiss shows up during the work. The objective stays the crisis in front of you.
I ran those four Jobs on the PlayStation 5 launch build. The first session is a kit, two sliders, a lift, and a floor that already has a problem. I set Threat and Clearance at the menu, rode the lift with two other Firebreakers, and landed in a sector that was already failing. Nobody briefed a plot on the way down. The Job name on the menu was the briefing. You finish the shift or the House finishes it for you. Then you are back at the same four names.
Crisis Kits
The kit is the part of the loadout that decides the shift. Fix is a wrench. You repair machines the House has broken and keep the useful ones running. Jump is the Electro-Kinetic Charge Impactor. It shocks wet surfaces and pops anything you have already soaked. Splash is the Crank-Operated Fluidic Ejector, a hose with a federal name. It wets enemies and floors so Jump has something to finish, and it washes status effects off a teammate. Devices and Parautility sit behind those three as the upgrade path. You can change kits in the loadout menu and again while a Job is running.
Water plus shock is the combination the kits were built to use. Splash wets a pile. Jump detonates it. Fix restores a sprinkler so the other two have a tool already bolted to the ceiling. Leave the sprinkler broken and the hose has to do all the soaking by hand. Bring two Jump kits and nobody can wet the floor. A Splash with no Jump leaves wet piles sitting there. Skip a kit and the floor is missing a verb.
Three people in a lift will argue about who brought the wrench. Most Jobs want a Fix on the floor, and the kit screen will not assign one for you. I swapped kits between drops and again mid-Job when the floor changed what it needed. On one Hot Fix drop I started on Jump, found a dead machine, and switched to Fix in the field. The wrench does nothing until something is broken. Locking one loadout for a whole night wastes the swap. The gun is modest, and I spent more time choosing a kit than a rifle.
Paper Chase
Paper Chase is the Executive Sector Job. Sticky notes colonize the offices. They cover desks, gather in corners, climb cabinets, and stick to a visor if you stand still. The work is to destroy them before the floor finishes colonizing itself. Water soaks a pile so a shock will pop it. A dry note does not care about Jump. A soaked note does. Leave a pile in a corner while you fight something else and it grows. Ignore the piles long enough and they stand up as Sticky Ricky, a walking wad of stationery you now have to put down before you extract.
Too many notes on the visor and you go down. They cover the glass until you cannot see the next pile. A bathroom shower, a sprinkler someone repaired, or a teammate holding Splash is the difference between an extract and becoming the next pile. I used a shower in an Executive bathroom when Splash was on the other side of the floor. The notes came off the visor and I got up. I walked back into the offices and kept tearing piles off the desks. A photocopier in that sector becomes another machine that might help, or another machine that needs the wrench, depending on who walked out of the lift.
I queued Paper Chase with Splash soaking piles and Jump popping the wet ones. This is the Job I would point someone at first, because the stationery makes the kits obvious. Sticky Ricky is funny until notes hit the visor on the way to the lift.
The Oldest House
The Oldest House still looks like a Remedy building. Northlight is the engine. Concrete, glass, fluorescent offices, binders, and corridors that were already wrong before anything started moving. If you played Control, the Executive Sector is a place you have walked. If you have not, you learn the corridors as a job site. The camera sits close on helmets and kits. You are a first responder on a floor.
The Job name tells you which workplace is failing. Paper Chase is offices. Hot Fix is machines. Freezer Duty is cold storage. Frequency Shift is a signal problem. You take a lift to the floor that already has a crisis, do the work, and leave. The House is the same building. The camera stays on the job site.
Notes rustle before they cover a visor. A wrench has weight in the speaker. A hose sounds like a hose. On Paper Chase I heard a pile gather in a corner before I turned to look. Fix hitting a dead panel on Hot Fix has the same dull contact as a real wrench. The House is loud in a workplace way.
Friends, Price, and the Launch Roster
Firebreak is built for three players. Friend’s Pass is the invite: buy the game and you can bring friends into the full Job list with you. Limits sit on the pass side. The buyer holds the complete game. Cross-play keeps the lift from becoming a platform argument. Official matchmaking will also hand you strangers. The kits assume someone else is holding a hose or a wrench. A quiet trio can still clear a low Clearance if someone already knows water and shock. A silent queue can waste a whole shift when nobody brings Fix and nobody says so.
The $39.99 list price is the one to print. Deluxe at $49.99 is cosmetics and voice packs, not a stronger kit. Day-one access on PC Game Pass, Game Pass Ultimate, and PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium meant a lot of people could try a Job without paying that list price first. I played with friends on comms and with silent matchmaking. Someone calling the hose before the notes hit the visor is the difference between a clean extract and a wasted drop. Firebreak is better with friends who talk.
The menu is what wears out. Four Jobs is a focused week of work, not a deep live-service slate on day one. You will learn which bathroom has the shower. You will start recognizing a floor before the lift doors open. Remedy said two new Jobs would arrive later in 2025, with more in 2026, and that the playable additions stay free. Those Jobs were not in the June 17, 2025 launch I played. The launch menu I filed this against has four names on it.
Final Thoughts
FBC: Firebreak is for people who want the Oldest House with two friends who talk. It is not for people who want Control 2, or a deep live-service slate on day one. The kits and the building are why I would queue again. The launch menu is four Jobs, and silent matchmaking can waste a shift. 8.5 / Great.
We prepared this review with a digital copy of FBC: Firebreak for the PS5 version provided by Remedy Entertainment.
Good
- Crisis Kits you can change during a Job
- Water and shock on the same objective
- Paper Chase, the notes, and Sticky Ricky
- Friend’s Pass and cross-play
- The Oldest House in Northlight
Bad
- Four Jobs on the launch menu
- Clearance lengthens a Job instead of adding a map
- Silent matchmaking can burn a session
- Guns do less work than the kits
