The co-op shooter is struggling badly, but Remedy isn't giving up on it. Today the studio announced plans for its first "major update," set to arrive in late September, that it hopes will make the game more accessible to newcomers, and more engaging for veterans.
FBC: Firebreak stumbled out of the gate, with serious balance problems and a real lack of content. "The good news," we said in our , "is many of Firebreaks problems are fixable." The bad news, quite simply, is that it needs a whole lot of fixin'. Immediate [[link]] issues were addressed via several patches released in relatively short order, but this update aims to get down to more substantial problems.
It's been one month since FBC: Firebreak launched so now is a great time for us to discuss what is coming in the first Major Update in late September. Read our latest blog post for the full details: store.steampowered.com/news/app/227... #FBCFirebreak
— @remedygames.com ()
That's going to be a major challenge. FBC: Firebreak's on Steam have tanked—currently just 34 people are playing—and while the game's presence on Game Pass means that may only be a small portion of the total, it's still worrisome: Even if Steam only represents 1% of your total audience, that means you've got just 3,400 people playing across all platforms. That number on Steam alone would not be good.
So there's a lot of ground to make up, but Remedy has clear ideas about what it wants to do to make it happen. Better onboarding for new players is a priority—Remedy said it's "seen many players come into the game and leave within the first hour"—as is better gunplay: One of the changes in the works is a new modding system for guns that will give players the ability to tweak their weapons. "Generic" upgrades are also being dropped, and players will begin the game "with a playable and powerful version of everything a Firebreak needs."
Clearance and Corruption Levels, which requires players to play through chunks of levels multiple times (and very quickly becomes a drag) are also being dropped in favor of "pre-made, exciting (you’ll have to take our word for that for now) variations of Job experiences that can still be short or long or filled with Corrupted Items, but also a whole lot more." Remedy is also "reevaluating our matchmaking flow" to provide for more and better matches. More jobs and increased randomization are also on the way.
It sounds like Remedy knows what it wants to do, and as a fan of Control I'd love to see it happen. But one of the biggest challenges facing the game, apart from gameplay issues, is simple indifference. FBC: Firebreak hit an all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam of just 1,992 at launch, which to me doesn't point to a great mass of interest in the game in the first place, issues or not.
Maybe [[link]] a major rework, and some serious patience, will result in positive word-of-mouth and help turn things around. But even if everything is brought up to snuff, whether FBC: Firebreak will attract a sustainable player base remains a very big open question.