Remedy's Co-Op Shooter FBC: Firebreak Debuts With a Disastrous Launch

Exactly one week after the abhorrent release of Build A Rocket Boy's MindsEye, yet another AAA game studio has launched a title that, to put it as mildly as possible, failed to spark interest within the gaming community and flopped spectacularly. This week, it's none other than Remedy – the developer of Alan Wake and Control – with its new co-op shooter FBC: Firebreak, set in the Control universe.

In light of the weak performance of Alan Wake 2, which took over a year just to break even and start turning a profit, it seems Remedy ran out of budget for marketing, leaving FBC: Firebreak largely obscure and unnoticed until its release.

The lack of hype, combined with the game's own issues, has severely impacted Firebreak's player count, which peaked at only 1,992 concurrent players on Steam – even fewer than the worst game of 2025, the aforementioned MindsEye – and although the title is also available on PlayStation and Xbox, this figure perfecty puts into perspective the magnitude of Firebreak's failure.

Speaking of the game's own issues, as of this writing, FBC: Firebreak holds a Mixed 59% positive rating on Steam and a slightly higher, yet still underwhelming, 65 score from gaming journalists on Metacritic.

If the title's main problems were to be summarized in a few words, it would be "lack of variety" or "lack of content" in general. Negative reviews highlight that Firebreak offers only five short maps, an unbelievably small arsenal of just six weapons, no server browser, and no text or voice chat. Additional complaints include slow and unsatisfying movement, dull objectives, and a price tag of $40, which many consider overpriced given that the game feels more like a pre-alpha, early access project rather than a polished AAA release.

Besides nearly half of the players, investors were also seemingly disappointed with the release, with Remedy's stock going down 12% following Firebreak's launch. At the moment, the studio hasn't publicly addressed the game's underperforming launch, having only deployed a hotfix on Steam to improve matchmaking and promising that hotfixes for other platforms will follow as soon as possible.

Don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.