Remedy Entertainment’s latest Alan Wake spinoff, FBC: Firebreak, hasn’t engaged players as much as hoped, but a new update aims to fix that. FBC: Firebreak launched for consoles and PC (via Steam and EGS) on July 17, but despite its ties to the successful Alan Wake universe, which has also seen another profitable release with Control, it has received criticism from players regarding playability challenges from the get-go.
The 3-player co-op launched with a mostly negative rating on Steam, from an unimpressive 250 review count, where players commented on not really enjoying the game and its unfocused, difficult challenges and while numerous media outlets have given somehwat positive reviews it’s obvious that the gaming community has yet to feel engaged with it. Since Patch 1.2 has rolled out the review count has risen to over 1,200, a still lackluster number, but has at least pushed its rating to Mixed status. Remedy acknowledged in its patch notes that it is working on making changes to the game in order to make it more enjoyable.
Per Patch 1.2 notes:
“The game’s first hours do not provide a great experience due to a combination of things.
Some of this is down to a lack of onboarding (more about that in a bit), explaining the game’s systems, how to take advantage of the tools at your disposal, and a lack of clarity as to what to do in the Jobs and how to do the work effectively.
In addition, the power fantasy isn’t great in the first hours of the game as starting (tier 1) weapons feel weak, and unlocking higher-tier weapons requires a bit too much grinding.
We can see from the data and are seeing feedback that players who stick around and unlock more powerful tier 3 weapons and Perks, playing on higher Threat levels and Full three zone Job runs, are having a better time.”
From UI improvements to better explaining the game’s mechanics, and making access to various jobs easier for story progression, along with accelerated gear unlocks, the developers are working to improve the experience in playing the game. Here’s a list of changes made via the latest patch.
- You are no longer required to play the first two Clearance Levels of each Job.
- New players start their experience with a full three-zone Hot Fix Job run (Clearance Level 3).
- Completing the full Job unlocks the next full Job, and so on.
- Completing a full Job also unlocks the Corruption option for that Job.
- Lost Assets and Research Samples are now clearly visually highlighted, making it harder to miss them
- Rebalancing the cost of all unlockables
- We have split the Operational Requisitions into two:
- All cosmetics (sprays, armor sets) are placed in a new Requisitions page called “Expressions”.
- Operational Requisitions is renamed to “Essentials” and as the name implies, contains weapons, gear, and equipment.
- Making essentials like Altered Augments, Improvised Devices, and powerful weapons easier to access.
- The end result of these changes is that you can unlock and buy gear significantly faster than before. No more needing to unlock gloves just to get to a better revolver.
Remedy has said more changes are inbound as it continues to exam community feedback and identify more courses of action. FBC:Firebreak also features full ray tracing and DLSS 4 with multi frame generation.